In the Hero's Shadow
by Random Equinox
Summary: On some level, everyone owes a part of who they are today to people they met in the past. For Shepard, that means it's time to honour a long-overdue debt... and the inevitable trouble that comes with it.
1. How Quickly Things Change

**In the Hero's Shadow**

_**Foreword**__:_

_It may surprise readers to know that preparing compilations of Shepard's personal logs for limited release is a complicated and involved undertaking. From compiling related logs, to coding them into a format that can be read by various programs in multiple languages, to the inevitable research required to provide the origin of__some obscure minutiae or musical piece that Shepard invariably refers to—this takes a great deal of time. Time that I have less and less of, given the increasing demands and responsibilities I have to bear. Chief amongst those demands is balancing the conflicting priorities _**of **_those _who_would see greater galactic cooperation between species and those who would prefer a stronger advocacy _for_humanity on the galactic stage._

_Providence offered an unexpected, but most assuredly welcome, answer to my plight. The series of personal logs pertaining to the next mission I had intended to edit and submit had already been reviewed by Dr. Liara T'Soni of the Asari Republics. After reviewing Dr. T'Soni's work, I could not find it in myself to change any of her additions, whether factual or grammatical. In fact, I believe it offers a more personal and firsthand account than I would be able to provide myself. To those who raise the inevitable criticisms that this constitutes a security risk to the Systems Alliance and a detrimental blow to humanity's interest, I would like to point out that Dr. T'Soni has been granted security clearance equivalent to, if not exceeding, most of the Alliance diplomatic and military community. This clearance has been earned and proven time and time again._

_As for those parties who have been clamouring for this move under the auspices of further inter-species diplomacy, I offer an ancient human aphorism: be careful what you wish for._

_I trust readers will find the following logs both informative and enlightening._

_Sincerely,_

_David Anderson_

_Councillor, Citadel Council_

* * *

_**Editorial Note**__: _

_My name is Dr. Liara T'Soni, and I have the honour and privilege of counting Commander Shepard amongst my closest and most trusted friends._

_At the time of this submission, I was in a period of introspection, reviewing the events and decisions that had shaped my life thus far. I found it striking that several of the events that shaped the course of my life included Shepard's presence and participation—whether direct or otherwise. After all, humans, like so many other species, live a mere fraction of an asari's lifespan. But as a student of history, current events and knowledge, perhaps I should not find that surprising. While they may be amongst the youngest races of the galactic community, they have more than compensated for their initial inexperience and physical limitations with an impressive degree of adaptability, an inexhaustible sense of curiosity and wonder, and an unrelenting drive, determination and ambition that is unsurpassed. Shepard, in particular, embodies all of these qualities in the most positive sense, so it is no wonder that he had such an influential impact on my life._

_In the course of my introspection, I uncovered an early draft of Shepard's private logs, detailing his personal thoughts, opinions and perspectives on one of the pivotal moments of my life. I must confess to reading it over and over again, each time marvelling at how he saw things. Remembering the events through my own eyes. Examining my decisions and debating whether I would have made different choices with the knowledge and experience I now possess. _

_It was when I caught myself making annotations that I took a moment to reconsider my actions. Did this constitute an invasion of Shepard's privacy? Was I selfish in using Shepard's personal thoughts as a means of coming to terms with my own life? What right did I have to boldly dig through his history to better understand my own? It was with those questions in mind that I went to Shepard and apprised him of my actions. _

_Rather than berate or scold me, Shepard was sympathetic to my plight. He admitted that he used these personal logs as a means to 'decompress,' if not figure out 'how [he] got into so many messes and disasters.' He told me that if they had a similar effect on me, then I was welcome to peruse his words and thoughts, and that he trusted me to exercise the appropriate amount of discretion._

_I humbly took him up on his generous offer and refined the draft into a more polished final transcript. As he had hoped, I found it a cathartic and enlightening experience. It is with similar gratitude and appreciation that I present these logs to those with sufficient security clearance. I have tried to maintain a balance between objective editorial changes—such as dividing the logs into chapters for easier reading and the inclusion of certain footnotes for factual clarification—and personal, subjective additions. Any failure to do so reflects on me entirely._

_Sincerely,_

_Dr. Liara T'Soni_

* * *

**Chapter 1: How Quickly Things Change**

I think I figured out the real reason why Miranda likes to be on top.

It isn't because she's a control freak (though she is. I would never phrase it that way because Mom didn't raise a fool, but she kinda is. Oddly enough, it's one of the things I love about her). It isn't because she wants to put on a show (though I'd be the last one to complain about the view).

No, she likes to be on top because she's smart enough to avoid giving herself carpet burns.

It could be worse, mind you. At least I heal fast, thanks to all the mods I've got. And the view's great. And, most importantly, the sex is fantastic. **(1)**

By the time I got up, Miranda had already gotten up, put her clothes back on and was busy typing away at her computer. Don't ask me how. Must be something she was taught. Or something women were taught. Or maybe that knowledge was encoded in her genetic memory. Pulling my shirt on, I stumbled over. I peered over her shoulder as I put my pants back on.

_Username OriannaL _

_Username: Mlaws _

_ML: [LOGIN][ONLINE] _

_OR: [LOGIN][ONLINE] _

_13:45 OR: Hey. Umm...is that you? _

_13:45 ML: Yes. Don't worry, I've made sure everything is secure._

Of course she did. I'd expect nothing less of her.

_13:46 OR: Secure. Right. Yeah, good call. _

_13:46 ML: How are you settling in? _

_13:46 OR: Good! The house is huge! Seems so big for me._

_13:47 ML: How are your studies going? _

_13:47 OR: Great! I still don't like Genetic Theory, but I want to understand everything y'know? Physics and Math all seem to breeze by. _

That makes one of us. If I had a better grasp on physics or math, I could use it to factor in environmental variables and optimize my sniper shots. As it was, I had to use my gut.

_13:48 ML: Your mark in Late 20th Century Earth History is below the standard deviation. Did you want me to hire a tutor for you? _

It wasn't surprising to hear that Miranda was keeping close tabs on Oriana. She always had, right from the moment she sprung her from her father's clutches. She was just a little more open about it now that she had made contact with her sister. **(2)**

_13:48 OR: History? No, it's OK. Just not interested I guess. _

_13:49 ML: Ori. _

_13:50 OR: What? Fiiiine... yes. OK, there's a boy in there. Danner._

I suppose Miranda not believing her sister wasn't a surprise either. Sibling intuition, I guess.

_13:51 ML: Danner Gossimah? _

_13:51 OR: Yes! How did you know that? _

_13:52 ML: It doesn't matter. His family owns a series of restaurants on the Citadel. Good academic record. Interested in sports. Broke his leg when he was 14. _

Miranda's depth of knowledge _definitely _wasn't a surprise.

_13:53 OR: Umm... sure. Yes, he's always asking questions in class. I don't think he even knows I'm alive. _

_13:54 ML: I see. _

_13:55 OR: How Do I... y'know, get him to notice? _

_13:55 ML: Getting him to notice? Yes, I can help with that. _

_13:55 OR: Pleez _

Miranda turned to me. I looked back at her. "Yes?" I asked slowly.

She gestured at the screen.

"Wh-me? Seriously?" I sputtered.

"You'd know more about this then I would," Miranda said.

I looked at her blankly. "I would?"

"I spent my entire childhood being groomed to be perfect and my adulthood performing Cerberus missions," Miranda reminded me. "Anything remotely resembling the objective of acquiring someone's attention was carefully planned out with every variable accounted for. Somehow, I don't think compiling a profile on Danner and calculating the variables is what Ori has in mind. It doesn't seem, well, normal."

"I spent my entire childhood bouncing from starship to space station to starship," I reminded her. "My adulthood was spent stumbling into one disaster after another. Somehow, I don't think sending e-mails or shooting at this guy would help your sister out."

"But at least you got the chance to meet girls you were interested in. Maybe even try to ask them out."

I winced. "Yeah… about that… let's just say the chances of you ever running into an ex-girlfriend of mine are a statistical impossibility."

"Well what am I supposed to do?!" Miranda cried out.

"I don't know!" I replied. "Maybe tell her to make a point of talking to him."

"That's it?"

"Well, what do you want?"

"I don't know. Something more concrete."

I gave a helpless shrug. "Sorry, but I got nothing."

Miranda continued to stare at me.

"Hey, you know me: I usually just wing it and hope for the best."

When it became clear that I wasn't going to be any help, she turned back to the computer and...

...logged on the extranet?

I watched in growing bemusement as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "Are you—?"

"Hush."

"Are you actually—"

"I don't have any personal experience to draw upon. Neither do you, apparently. This is the best option given the current time constraints."

"You know she's not a hermit or a Luddite, right?" **(3)**

"Quiet."

"I'm just saying: she does have extranet—"

"One more word and you're cut off."

"Shutting up now."

Mouth shut, I silently watched as Miranda concluded her research, interpreted the data and formulated a response (or whatever the heck she'd call it):

_13:58 ML: Yes. Boys. You must be sure to always be true to yourself. I know that sounds like silly advice but if he isn't interested in the real you he won't be interested. You have to trust that when things are right he will notice you, and he will appreciate what you are both inside and out. You can't make yourself into something you are not _

_13:58 OR: because you will never learn if that special someone falls for you or falls for a lie. _

_13:58 ML: Ori I didn't _

_13:58 OR: You are pasting advice from the 'Dear Dinah' column dated two weeks ago! We have the extranet here as well sis. God!_

I would've kept my mouth shut. The threat of being deprived of sex wasn't a contributing factor. Yes, that's the story I would stick with.

_13:59 ML: I didn't mean to make you angry. I only... _

_13:59 OR: I know sis! I know... I'm sorry. I just hate all this. Being here and you're off doing whatever to save the world or galaxy or whatever. I just hate it!_

Miranda buried her head in her hands. Something that sounded like a muffled wail came out. I figured it was about the right time to wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a hug. "Well, at least you tried," I offered.

"I wish I could have been more helpful," Miranda moaned. "And I hate being separated from Ori like this."

"You could go and visit her, you know," I suggested. "We have saved the galaxy. For now."

"But there's still so much to do," Miranda reminded me. "The hull is still being repaired. We haven't gotten all of our supplies yet. **(4)** Not to mention that we still haven't cracked the data that the Collector General sent us."

I pulled up some reports on my omni-tool and quickly skimmed through them. "Hull repairs are actually ahead of schedule. They're doing the final integrity checks now and, assuming all goes well, they should be done by tomorrow. The critical supplies were already brought onboard; we're just waiting for a few nonessential items. As for the Collector data, we only started going over it a couple days ago. If it was that easy to crack, the Reapers wouldn't be nearly as grave a threat."

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right," I told Miranda, giving her a quick peck on her cheek. "Now why don't you go back to your chat before Oriana starts wondering what happened to you?"

Miranda reached over, grabbed a fistful of my uniform, yanking me close and giving me a sizzling kiss that, well, kinda, um, you know, distracted me. A lot. By the time I recovered, Miranda was back at the keyboard. It looked like Miranda had sent my original suggestion of talking to the guy. Oriana had thanked her and apologized for 'spazzing out' when there were more important things to worry about.

_14:03 ML: There isn't a point to saving the galaxy if I can't even talk to my sister. I'm sorry. I am. Now why don't you tell me about this boy? _

_14:04 OR: Yeah, OK. He's... different. _

_14:04 ML: I hate him already. _

_14:04 OR: RANDA! _

_14:05 ML: I'm your big sister. I'm going to hate all of them. Accept it. Now, his eye color says blue here. Is that ocean blue or a more gun metal blue?_

* * *

I had some other errands to run. And places to go. And people to annoy. It took a couple hours before I got back to my quarters and fed my fish. And checked up on my miniature space hamster. And looked through my e-mail.

A minute later, I was in Miranda's quarters, showing her the lone e-mail that _wasn't _another piece of spam:

_To: Shepard  
From: Cerberus Information Processing_

_We're aware that your old friend Liara T'Soni has been hunting for the Shadow Broker for several years. We wouldn't mind helping her in that hunt, given the Broker's past work for the Collectors. We recently uncovered some information that might give Liara a lead on where to find the Shadow Broker's base of operations, but unfortunately, she doesn't have much faith in Cerberus intel. If you'd visit Illium and pass it on to her as a gesture of goodwill, we'd appreciate it._

"Interesting," was all Miranda had to offer.

"'Interesting'," I repeated. "You don't think this is a little bit hinky, given the circumstances?"

"'Hinky'?" Miranda repeated.

"Strange. Wrong. Weird."

"I know what 'hinky' means."

"Just checking."

"Granted, it seems suspicious. But it's possible that Cerberus Information Processing wasn't aware of the... less-than-amicable circumstances behind your departure from Cerberus," Miranda suggested. "Or this may be the Illusive Man's version of an olive branch."

I raised an eyebrow. "Left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing? With the Illusive Man overseeing things? EDI told me that Cerberus doesn't have that many cells _because _he likes keeping informed of every little thing."

"But it's not a two-way street: the Illusive Man may know what each cell is doing, but those cells aren't privy to his decisions. Not immediately, anyway."

"So, what, Info Processing didn't get the memo?"

"It's possible." Miranda raised her hands before I could make another objection. "I'll admit it's more likely that this is a trick or trap, either to disable the Normandy or to ensnare Dr. T'Soni. Regardless, the only way to know for certain is to download the data and analyze it."

"You don't think that's dangerous?"

"No more risky than going through the Omega 4 relay," Miranda shrugged. "I'll have EDI set up additional firewalls before we download the data, and we'll scan it with every program and algorithm we have before opening the files. Then, of course, we'll have to actually look at the data and determine whether or not it is legitimate."

"How long will it take before we have something?" I wanted to know.

"Hard to say, but I should have a preliminary analysis complete by this evening."

Well if _that _was the case... "Work date?" I suggested.

"Work date," Miranda agreed.

* * *

The rest of the day kinda blurred together. There were a lot of questions floating in the void between my ears. Most of those wound up being variations on the same three questions:

1) Was the e-mail and its contents a trap?

2) Was the e-mail and its contents legit?

3) How would Liara react?

It was that last one that worried me most. I was still pondering that question when I picked up some goodies from the mess hall and brought them over to Miranda's office. As usual, she had plates set out and a datapad of reports and stuff for me to review and sign off on. She raised an eyebrow as I divvied up the tea and snacks.

"Jasmine tea and coconut macaroons?"

"Yep."

"That doesn't really go together." **(5)**

"Nope."

"I seem to recall saying the same thing with many of your food and drink pairings."

"Yep."

"And that doesn't faze you in the slightest."

"Nope."

"Of course it doesn't," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"Oh nothing," she replied nonchalantly. Then she gave me this smouldering glance and a dazzling smile...

The next thing I knew, Miranda was halfway through her tea, had polished off her macaroons and had this knowing smirk on her face. I think she did that on purpose.

Having recovered from my momentary daze, I sat down, thumbed on the datapad, took a sip of tea and started going through all the reports. Daily maintenance was complete. Garrus's latest calibrations—only ten in the last day. His standards were starting to slip—were finished. Stores were fully stocked.

I popped a macaroon in my mouth and took another sip of tea. "So what's the sitrep on that Cerberus e-mail?" **(6)**

Miranda put down her tea and leaned forward. "First, there were no viruses, worms or malware embedded in the e-mail or its contents."

"Good to know."

"Second, I can't find any indication that the data was manufactured or falsified in any way. For all intents and purposes, it appears to be legitimate."

"So why is Cerberus sending it to us?" I wanted to know.

"Maybe it's not Cerberus," Miranda suggested. "Not exactly."

"Huh?" I replied.

"Something I thought of after you left this afternoon," Miranda explained. "The Lazarus Cell may not be the only members of Cerberus who have become... disillusioned by the methods and operations sanctioned by the Illusive Man. Perhaps this data came from a disgruntled operative who wanted to make one act of defiance before cutting ties."

"The e-mail contents didn't exactly suggest that," I pointed out.

"What would you have said? "I'm leaving Cerberus and this is my two week's notice?'"

"I'm just saying that we can't eliminate the possibility that this is false intel, given what little we know of the source."

"True," Miranda conceded. "But in the absence of any proof to the contrary, all we can do is follow the leads and exercise extreme caution."

"And those leads are?" I prompted.

"EDI is still decrypting and reconstructing. From what we've managed to determine so far, it appears to be a leaked transmission between some of the Shadow Broker's operatives. Furthermore, one of the operatives appears to be a senior operative. If so, he or she may be in a position of leadership. Possibly overseeing one of the Shadow Broker's operations—"

"—or maybe he or she is working in the Shadow Broker's base of operations," I finished.

"It's still premature to draw any firm conclusions," Miranda cautioned. "We haven't even begun to trace the origins of the transmissions. But the preliminary results are intriguing, to say the least."

"Well we're good to go now," I said, waving the datapad Miranda had given me. "And everyone's back from shore leave. If the data is as promising as you say, maybe we should pay Liara a visit. We can do some more digging en route."

"It would be the most efficient use of our time," Miranda agreed.

"Then it's decided. Tell Joker to set a course for Illium. Meanwhile, I'll have Tali and Legion come up to give you and EDI a hand."

"After we finish our tea, of course."

"After we finish our tea," I confirmed.

* * *

We finished our tea, got the necessary clearance from Citadel Traffic Control to depart and set course for Illium. That, at least, was accomplished without any difficulty or trouble.

Unfortunately, we didn't make a lot of progress with the data. All we managed to do was finish the decryption. There weren't a lot of clues for us to work with. Hopefully Liara, with all her resources and knowledge as an information broker, would have better luck. If nothing else, I knew she would find one of the image files we decrypted _very _interesting.

I sent word for Liara to take care of the docking fees and other administrative crap for us so we wouldn't get bogged down or ripped off by Illium bureaucracy. Once we landed, I let most of the squad wander off. Miranda, Garrus, Tali and I went to see Liara.

We didn't have to see a receptionist this time—I guess she couldn't trust another one after discovering that Nyxeris was secretly working for the Shadow Broker. Or, more to the point, she couldn't bring herself to trust another person. I found that second option rather… disturbing. When I first met her two years ago, she used to be so innocent and trusting. I knew that would be tempered over time, but to go to the other extreme like this? That didn't seem right.

Rather than wait, I activated the door controls and peeked in. Liara was sitting at her desk, reading something on her computer. Another thing that had changed, and not necessarily for the better. Back in the day, the document on her screen would probably be some academic paper or the latest analysis from her scans on the Prothean disks I scrounged up. Now it was probably a report on the assassination of some Shadow Broker operative or an intelligence summary on possible Shadow Broker bases. At least she wasn't threatening to flay anyone with her mind. That memory alone made me think twice about the wisdom of giving this data to the hardened, dark echo of Liara sitting before me. The concern that her need for vengeance would overcome any sense of caution didn't help.

Before I could change my mind, Liara looked up. "Shepard," she said, a small smile on her face. "It's good to see you again. Please, come in. You too, Tali. Garrus. Miranda."

For a moment, I could almost imagine that things hadn't changed.

I walked towards her desk, marveling at the space. It seemed awfully big, considering Liara's current line of work. They _had _made an awful lot of progress in computer miniaturization over the years. **(7)**

After exchanging pleasantries, we got down to business. "So, what can I do for you?" Liara asked.

"I know you've been looking for the Shadow Broker," I began. "Cerberus gave me some data that might point you in the right direction. Interested?"

"Absolutely! I had no idea—let me see what you've got!" Liara positively yanked the datapad out of my hands and started poring through the data.

"From what we've been able to determine, it's a leaked transmission between Shadow Broker operatives," I offered. "We confirmed that one of those operatives works on the Shadow Broker's main base of operations, but we haven't been able to figure out where it is. More importantly..."

I broke off as Liara let out a gasp. "It's about—the transmission. It's about Feron. He's still alive."

"Exactly," I nodded. "You said he helped you recover my..." I had to pause for a second. Even after a year, I still had trouble coming to terms with what had happened. **(8)** "He helped you recover my body from the Shadow Broker," I finished. "Did you ever figure out why he was selling me to the Collectors?"

...

...

...

"Liara?" I prompted.

With a start, Liara came back from, well, wherever she had been. "No, I'm afraid not."

"Are you okay, Liara?" Tali asked worriedly.

"I... I was just thinking about... about the cost of saving Shepard," Liara said softly to Tali before turning to me. "Feron sacrificed himself so I could escape with your body. And then I had to give it over to Cerberus. Because they said they could bring you back. I didn't know how you'd feel when Cerberus resurrected you. If you'd feel betrayed or—"

"Hey," I gently interrupted. "We've been over this before. Like I said before, you did the right thing. I wouldn't have been able to stop the Collectors if it wasn't for you. Yeah, Cerberus helped, but we all know it was really you."

Liara nodded absently, her mind fixed on the datapad once more. "And now Cerberus is helping me again. Giving me a chance to find Feron. After two years, I hadn't even dreamed..."

She broke off again. I waited for a few moments before speaking. "Sounds like you and Feron were close, even though you didn't know each other that long."

"It's funny," Liara said with a sad smile. "He betrayed me more than once. He was double-dealing for Cerberus, for the Shadow Broker... in the end, though, he sacrificed himself for me. I owe him."

"I owe him too," I offered. "Without his sacrifice, you wouldn't have gotten away. But if he's been the Shadow Broker's prisoner for two years, he may not be in good shape."

"I know," Liara admitted. "But yesterday, all I wanted was the chance to avenge his death. Today, he's alive. I'll do whatever I have to do to get him back."

That was exactly what I was afraid of. "Have you considered the possibility that this data might be fake? Or a lure to lead you into a trap?" I asked. "This was sent by Cerberus intelligence _after _I severed whatever ties I had with them."

"I don't care," Liara burst out, getting to her feet. "All that matters is that I've spent two years plotting revenge. Now I have the chance to make it a rescue."

"Okay," I said soothingly. "Fine. What's the next step?"

Liara brushed a hand over her head frills. "I... I don't know. I need to prepare, to think. I, uh, I'm going home. Use my terminal if you need any local intel."

I reached out and grabbed her before she bolted. "Hey, slow down. Let me help. I'll come by your apartment later?"

"Okay," Liara nodded. "Hopefully I'll have a plan by then. Thank you, Shepard."

She headed for the door. "Uh, Liara?" I called out.

"Yes?"

"Your address?"

"Oh. Right." She activated her omni-tool, sent the address, then left the office.

I let out a breath. "Well, that went well."

"We got as far as we could on our own," Tali said. "Liara can continue from there. Besides, we gave her hope."

"Potentially false hope," Miranda reminded her. "We never managed to verify the accuracy or validity of the data to my liking."

"What worries me is that Liara might not care," Garrus murmured. "I've never seen her so... so fixated. So _obsessed_. She might be so focused on finding this Feron that she ignores all the warning signs until it's too late." **(9)**

"I know," I frowned. "I've been worried about the same thing. I guess all we can do is follow her and watch her back."

"And hope this doesn't blow up in our faces," Garrus added.

* * *

I looked through the intel available on Liara's terminal, but there wasn't much I could make use of. Yet. And the nearby shopping kiosks didn't have anything I needed. After a couple hours, I gave up, rounded up the squad and headed for Liara's apartment. It was situated in an upscale part of Nos Astra, which meant it was basically the best of the best in terms of location, view, privacy and security. It also meant we had to rent a couple skycars to get there, since the overpriced excuse for public transit didn't cover that area.

I started feeling a tingling sensation on the back of my neck as we approached. That tingling became a sharp twinge as we saw the holographic 'police tape' cordoning off Liara's apartment.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Miranda said.

"Me too," I admitted.

"So do I," Garrus chimed in.

As we got closer, we could hear voices coming from inside Liara's apartment. A lot of voices. "Seal off those trace samples and get them back to the lab," one voice said.

"We got multiple shots fired," another voice reported. "Yeah, techs are going over the place now."

"Central, we got an open carrier on this end," a third voice called out. "Switching to a coded relay."

By that point, we'd crossed the first cordon of holographic police tape and entered the foyer of Liara's apartment. We stopped at the second cordon and looked around. A trio of asari and turians—cops, judging by their demeanour—were looking around the apartment, sweeping the place with their omni-tools, and basically doing everything you might expect at a crime scene.

I caught the attention of one of the cops. "What's going on?"

"This area is sealed off," the cop replied automatically. "Please step back. All of you."

"We'd be happy to do so," I smiled, "once you tell me why this apartment is sealed off."

"Somebody tried to kill your friend, Commander Shepard."

We all looked up at this fourth voice. It came from another asari. Light blue skin with a pattern of lavender marks on her face. Charcoal black hardsuit reinforced with royal blue and gunmetal grey armour plates—custom job. Definitely not a cop. She strolled down a flight of stairs—apparently Liara's home was a two-story apartment—with an air of unassailable confidence.

"Thank you, officer," she said, taking a few steps towards the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. It was only then that I noticed that one of them was sporting a couple bullet holes, complete with spider web-shaped cracks. Boy, I was really off my game if I missed that. "Your people are dismissed."

I glanced at the cop, shrugged a half-hearted apology, then walked through the tape. "You can't do that," the cop protested as the rest of my squad followed.

"Already done," the asari not-cop said without bothering to turn around.

The other two cops looked at each other, turned off their omni-tools and left Liara's apartment. Garrus gave them an apologetic nod. The last cop paused, practically vibrating with outrage, before throwing up her hands and storming out. Garrus gave her an apologetic nod too. I was more interested in how this asari had the authority to kick them out like that. Very interesting, I thought.

"Now that they're gone, maybe we can get some _real _work done," the asari not-cop said. "Tela Vasir. Special Tactics and Recon."

That would explain why the cops just up and left like that. "You're a Spectre?"

"Like you," Vasir nodded. "I heard your status was reinstated. Good. You may be one of our newest operatives, but you're also one of our most effective. And famous. Maybe when this is over, I'll get you to sign my chest plate."

Oh this was gonna end well. **(10) **

"So I assume you had business with your friend this evening, Commander?" Vasir asked.

"Looks like I'm not the only one," I replied.

Vasir raised an eyebrow. "I asked first, as I recall. But fine, we'll play it your way. I'm investigating the theft of confidential galactic economic data from the Council's Ministry of Finance. One of my leads brought me to Illium, but the trail went cold. I was hoping Dr. T'Soni could help me pick up the scent. She wasn't at her office, so I thought I'd try my luck at her home. That didn't go so well, as you can tell. Someone clearly didn't like her much. Your turn."

"Liara was following a lead on the Shadow Broker," I said.

That got her attention. "The Shadow Broker," she repeated. "Dangerous enemy to have. Do you think he had something to do with this?"

"You got here first," I shrugged. "You tell me. What are the facts so far?"

"About 25 minutes ago, someone took a shot at T'Soni. Note the bullet holes." She pointed over her shoulder.

Garrus walked over to the window and gave it a good look. "Glass isn't shattered, which suggests that either the glass was reinforced or the bullets had enough velocity to punch right through and keep on going," he observed. "If it's the latter, then we're looking at a sniper."

"Both, actually," Vasir said. "I managed to recover the round before the cops could get their ham hands on it. Definitely from a sniper rifle, but it wasn't standard issue. The sniper didn't plan on her kinetic barrier, though. Clever girl. Paranoid, but clever."

"So between the kinetic barrier and the glass, the shot was probably deflected," I guessed.

"The kinetic barrier probably did more to deflect the shot than the glass, but you're right," Vasir nodded. She stuck around for almost four minutes before leaving the building. Whatever she was doing was important."

"Did the police find anything when they arrived?" I asked.

"Just the mess and the bullet holes," Vasir sneered. "I gave them a gold star for finding the bullet holes."

Garrus stiffened, ever so slightly. Can't blame him: that comment seemed a little harsh. Though it wouldn't be the first time federal or galactic operatives looked down on local cops for being too limited and narrow-minded in the scope of their thinking. Needless to say, that dim view went the other way. "What did _you _find? Was there anything on her terminal?"

"I haven't found much," Vasir admitted. "As for her terminal, T'Soni wiped her drive before she left."

"Liara was expecting me," I frowned. "She would've left a message or something—her office wasn't safe."

"I'm not surprised," Vasir laughed. "Illium is just Omega with expensive shoes. If she did leave a message, though, I haven't found it yet. You know T'Soni better than I do. Where would she have hidden her backups?"

"Let me take a look around and get back to you."

"Fine. I'll take another crack at the terminal. Still have one or two tricks that I haven't tried yet."

Vasir went back to the terminal. Miranda glared at her. "I don't trust her," she declared.

"Does that have anything to do with a certain autograph request?" I asked.

Her lips said "Don't be ridiculous." Her eyes, on the other hand, were packing enough heat to vapourize Vasir, if that was physically possible.

"She might have a point," Garrus said quietly. "How do we know she's really a Spectre?"

"Let's find out," I offered. "EDI?"

"_Tela Vasir is a current operative with the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch of the Citadel Council," _EDI replied. _"Recent accomplishments include dissolving a slave trading ring in Aegohr, a city on the salarian colony of Nasurn, and an investigation into three simultaneous break-ins at the Citadel Council Ministry of Finance."_

The squad looked at me. I gave them an innocent smile. "I may have sent a message to EDI asking her to verify Vasir's Spectre status while we were chatting earlier. Anything else, EDI?"

"_There is a curious discrepancy to Vasir's earlier statements."_

"Oh?"

"_Vasir said that the economic report investigation was ongoing."_

"Yeah? It's not?"

"_News reports indicate that a hacker group calling itself 'TruthHax' was arrested for illegally uploading economic data from the Citadel Council approximately five months ago. Vasir, when asked by reporters, did not clarify her role in the arrest, but stated that she considered the case resolved." _**(11) **

Interesting. "So either she's lying about the case being resolved…" I started.

"…or she's lying about why she's here," Miranda finished.

"Could be nothing," Jacob frowned.

"Could be something," Kasumi said.

Garrus shook his head. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Me too," Miranda agreed.

"So do I," I added. "But let's just keep this to ourselves for now," I cautioned. "We don't want to tip our hand. Garrus, give everyone a crash course on searching a crime scene. Then we'll spread out and look through Liara's apartment."

That crash course took about five minutes. We started searching a minute later. And no, having thirteen people—fourteen, including Vasir—in Liara's apartment did not make things crowded. Being an information broker must pay really well. Her kitchen—located just off to the right of the entrance—was a third the size of our mess hall. I headed to the bank of windows near the back of the apartment, passing a lot of couches, plants and odd sculptures in glass enclosures along the way. I took a moment to admire the bullet holes—from a sniper's professional perspective, you see—before wandering around. One thing caught my attention immediately. "What is it?" Miranda asked.

"It's part of my old armour," I said.

"Looks like someone didn't like you much, either," Vasir called out. Good ears, that one.

"Hey Shepard," Jack hollered. "I thought Liara was a doctor-doctor. You know, like Chakwas."

"She isn't," I replied.

"That explains the fancy paper on the wall," Jack said.

Vasir looked up from the terminal. "A doctorate from the University of Serrice, back on Thessia," she explained when she saw my confusion.

"Oh."

"She's getting good use out of that education."

I couldn't tell whether Vasir was being sincere or sarcastic with that remark.

Seeing that most of the squad was congregated on the lower floor, I started up the stairs. I stopped halfway and leaned over the rail. "Grunt?"

"Yes, battlemaster?"

"Stop rummaging through her fridge. You ate from one of the food kiosks on the way over, remember?"

"But I'm hungry."

Miranda shook her head. "This must be what raising a child is like."

"Tell me about it." To Grunt, I just said "I highly doubt you'll find evidence in her fridge."

"You never know, Shepard."

"Zaeed, you're not helping."

"But I'm hungry too. And thirsty—asari can make some halfway-decent beer when they put their minds to it. Not as good as their liquors, though."

I closed my eyes. "Miranda?"

"Hmm?"

"You were wrong."

"About raising a child?"

"Yeah."

"You think this is like raising a bunch of them?"

"Better believe it."

"Agreed."

With that settled, we headed up the stairs to the upper floor. A good chunk of it was taken up by several more of those sculptures, all lined up behind glass like some museum exhibit. An aquarium was set into the wall just behind the headboard of Liara's bed. **(12)** There was a small table next to it with a picture of the Normandy. I picked it up.

A few seconds later, I got everyone's attention. I waited until Vasir and the squad arrived before picking up the picture again.

It didn't take long to make my point. "The picture changed when you touched it," Vasir said. "It must be keyed to your ID or DNA."

"I do not recognize that location," Thane said.

"I do," I replied. "It's a Prothean dig site." **(13)**

"Nice," Kasumi grinned. "Guess Liara did leave a message for us after all."

"There are a few Prothean-looking objects around the apartment," Vasir pointed out. "We should take a closer look at them."

So that's what they were. "Agreed," I said. "Let's spread out."

I passed Jacob as I headed down the stairs. He was scratching his head over one of the sculptures near Liara's bed. "Not my thing," he offered when he saw me, "but I bet they must be worth a fortune."

"Couple year's salary, at least," I offered before continuing on my way. **(14)** I bumped into Vasir on the lower level. She was running her hands over the glass case covering one of the sculptures. "She was certainly into ugly," she sniffed.

Tali glanced over at Vasir briefly before returning her attention to a large portrait portraying the ruins of Ilos. Liara must have taken a few pics when we were chasing Saren two years ago. I just kept my mouth shut and started looking at one of the other sculptures.

As soon as I touched the glass, I saw a ripple spread out. A hidden tray slid out. It held a single OSD, with a red light running around the rim. "Hey guys!" I called out. "I've got something here."

"Backup disk," Vasir identified. "Let's try it on her terminal."

Legion was already sitting there by the time we arrived. I handed it over to them to insert into the mainframe. "Searching," they stated. "One recording made within the last hour, Shepard-Commander."

"Play it," I ordered.

A picture of a salarian popped up. _"What have you got for me, Sekat?" _Liara—off-screen—asked.

"_It was tricky, but you paid for the best," _Sekat said. _"I can narrow it down to a cluster, maybe even a system."_

"_How soon can you have it?" _Liara asked immediately.

"_Shouldn't take long. Come to my office. Baria Frontiers, in the Dracon Trade Centre."_

"_I remember."_

Sekat paused for a second. _"Gotta say, though, T'Soni—you're making me a little nervous. How big is the trouble that could come out of this?"_

"_Relax, Sekat," _Liara soothed. _"I'll see you in a few hours." _

That was the end of the recording. "This must be important," I frowned. "The Shadow Broker's people already tried to kill her once."

"I know where the Dracon Trade Centre is," Vasir stated. "My car's outside."

"Ours too," I said. "Let's go."

"I'll drive," Miranda, Jacob and Garrus said in unison.

* * *

While Miranda, Jacob and Garrus were debating who should drive, I headed to one of the skycars and jumped behind the wheel. Once the squad realized that, they immediately began discussing who would sit in which skycar. For some reason, I got the feeling that the main focus was to _avoid _sitting in the skycar I was driving. After a minute, I interrupted them and assigned seating arrangements. Mordin handed out anti-nausea meds to the squadmates riding in my skycar. Never did figure out why.

Given that I was in a bit of a rush, I may have gone over the speed limit. The rest of my squad followed my lead. So we touched down outside the Dracon Trade Centre well before Vasir did. I opened a comm channel to her and apprised her of the situation.

"_The Baria Frontiers offices are located on the third floor," _she told us.

"We'll head up now," I replied. "You can catch up."

"_Understood," _she said. _"It's funny, though: I don't hear any police chatter. We must have missed the party."_

The tingling on the back of my neck suddenly came back. Hard.

A split second later, an explosion burst out above us. Looking up, I tried to trace the source. Looked like it was coming from...

...the third floor. Shit. "Liara's in there!" I yelled. I took a step forward.

The next three explosions sent all of us flying back.

* * *

_(1): One can be quite fascinated by how differently species regard the subject of sex. Salarians, for instance, have no interest in romantic love, sexual attraction or any pleasure that might be gained from sex. Indeed, they regard sex itself as nothing more than a necessary part of reproduction. Krogan focus solely on the physical aspect unless it results in the female becoming pregnant, in which case it becomes a matter of great pride and significance. Humans, however, tend to range across the entire emotional spectrum.  
__**  
**__(2): __Readers will recall that this contact was made at Shepard's urging. I did not realize this myself, however, until I began reading these logs._

_(3): Originating as a 19th century movement protesting the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, it_ _has since become a human term to describe anyone opposing industralization, automation, computerization or new technologies in general._

_(4): The Normandy was undergoing repairs and resupply at the Citadel, which was the closest facility with the necessary resources and expertise. It was also the safest location for a traumatized crew to enjoy some much-needed rest and relaxation. _

_(5): After trying this combination myself, I found that they did not complement each other. The fact that Miranda agrees suggests that this pairing was not a 'human thing'. _

_(6): Human military shorthand for 'situation report,' which details what is currently going on._

_(7): The previous owner had used the space as a luxury entertainment suite. I had entertained the notion of 'sprucing up the place,' as humans would say, but had not found the necessary time. _

_(8): A completely natural reaction, given what happened to Shepard. I myself had not fully come to terms with losing such a dear and cherished friend. The thought that the only way to bring him back was to cooperate with Cerberus was not a pleasant one._

_(9): In hindsight, the concerns they voiced were entirely accurate. I am forever indebted to all of them for making sure that my obsession and need for vengeance did not cost me my life._

_(10): Shepard's suspicions would prove prophetic, but not for the reasons he originally thought._

_(11): To be fair, records of Spectre operations and missions were heavily classified. Even a request from another Spectre would not uncover the sheer breadth of detail uncovered by EDI's search. However, the fact that certain details were disclosed to official galactic news networks did undermine the credibility of Vasir's cover story._

_(12): For the record, I would like to state that I never forgot to feed my fish._

_(13): The dig site on Eden Prime where Shepard had his encounter with his first Prothean beacon, to be exact. While I had never been there myself, I thought it would be appropriate. _

_(14): Closer to a decade, given Alliance wages and art prices at the time. _


	2. Red Ones Go Faster

**Chapter 2: Red Ones Go Faster**

Smoke billowed from the shattered windows of the Dracon Trade Centre, where at least four bombs had just gone off. As the squad slowly picked themselves up, we saw countless civvies who had been caught in the blast. Some were bent in unnatural positions. Others were pinned down underneath debris. Scraps of burning material rained down on all of us, a grim highlight to the unexpected development.

Miranda and I exchanged looks. "This could be a problem," she offered with admirable understatement.

Most of us agreed with her. Well, except for Grunt. "There, now it's getting fun," he grinned.

Ignoring him, I activated the comm. "Vasir?"

_"Above you," _she replied. Looking up, I saw her skycar hovering overhead. _"Looks like they took out three floors to make sure T'Soni's dead!"_

"Don't count her out yet," I said. "Liara's tougher than she looks."

_"Then we better start searching," _Vasirsaid. _"I'll park my skycar on the roof and seal off the building from the top!"_

"We'll start down here and work our way up," I replied.

_"Just leave some for me," _Vasir called out before cutting the comm.

"Where do we start?" Tali whispered. "I know we have to find Liara," Tali explained when we looked at her, "but there are so many wounded here. Don't they need help too?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Mordin replied. "Uploading basic triage program now." A beep chimed from our omni-tools when the upload was complete. "Scan potential patients with omni-tool," Mordin instructed. "Light will appear. If green; patient fine. Move on. If yellow; tell me. Will assess and stabilize. If red; patient dead or dying. Beyond help, move on."

"Good idea," I approved. "Let's move out."

The civvies in front of the Dracon Trade Centre were mostly green lights. Some wondered what was happening or who we were. Some were aware enough to comment on how they got knocked off their feet. Everyone else were red lights.

Inside the Trade Centre, in the foyer of the ground floor, was another matter. **(1)** All the lights were out or flickering. Smoke blanketed the air in a thin haze. _Everyone_ I saw was a red light. Dead. Whatever.

I managed to scrounge a bit of loot, from a locker whose door was blown clean off by the blast, before I finished sweeping the floor. The conclusions weren't pretty: every other possible exit, with the exception of the one we'd just come through, was buried underneath a heap of debris. Elevators were offline. Any security—automated or otherwise—was offline. And did I mention all the dead people?

Shaking my head, I activated the comm. "Vasir? Ground floor cleared. Looks like everyone inside was caught in the explosion."

Heading up the stairs now. _"Understood," _Vasir said. _"I just landed on the roof. If the damage down there is as bad as it looked... well, even if T'Soni is as tough as you say she is, I wouldn't take any bets on T'Soni's informant surviving that blast."_

She had a point, but I couldn't afford to think that way. "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings," I admonished. **(2)** "We assume they're both alive until we find out otherwise. Meanwhile, we're heading up the stairs—elevators are out. And it looks like building security is down too."

_"I can confirm that," _Vasir agreed. _"I tried tapping into the local network. No alarms triggered, no calls sent out to the police. Very professional."_

She was right. Aside from the local VI reciting some automated alert messages, the poor lighting and all the dead bodies, you would never know that a couple bombs had gone off. We reached the second floor, swiping some medi-gel along the way. The lights were still flickering, but at least most of the light panels and computer displays were still intact. I was about to tell the squad to spread out again when I heard someone. "Mercs... came from the smoke..." he gasped. "...set the bombs... killed everyone..."

We ran towards the voice. But we were too late—he'd already died by the time we got there. Mordin's omni-tool program confirmed he was dead. My eyes saw something else: "Garrus, take a look at this."

Garrus crouched down. "Looks like he's got bullet wounds," he said. He activated a program on his omni-tool and scanned the body. "Caliber's consistent with military-grade weapons."

"Which means that whoever set off the bomb's looking for survivors as well," I realized. "And giving them a free bullet or two. Let's hurry up and finish clearing this floor, guys."

As we searched, I relayed our findings to Vasir. All we found were dead bodies, another medical station with spare medi-gel and a PDA that I quickly hacked for credits. **(3)**

Third floor started off more dead bodies and a couple power cells. On a whim, I hacked into a nearby terminal. Nothing worth noting, but I did access the ATM functions and downloaded a few more credits.

"Shepard!"

I joined Zaeed by a large bulky object consisting of two cylinders and a blinking light. "Is that—?"

"A bomb? Yeah," Zaeed nodded. "Military-grade. Don't worry: it ain't armed."

Jacob gave a sigh of relief. "Good to know."

"Sloppy work, using bombs," Zaeed sniffed, getting to his feet. "You use that kind of hardware when you don't have time to plan... or when you don't give a shit about collateral damage."

"I fear that either option would explain our adversary's behaviour," Samara pointed out.

"True enough," I agreed. "Let's go on."

No more stairs—yet—but there was a door. We'd only taken a few steps inside before I realized where we were. "Vasir," I called out, "We just arrived at the Baria Frontiers office."

_"Anything?" _she asked.

"Checking," I replied, fingers flying over the receptionist's computer. "Looks like Liara signed in a few minutes ago. It's possible that she avoided the explosions."

_"Understood, Commander."_

The front part of the office was dimly lit, though the computer monitors were still working. Water covered the floor—possibly from the overhead sprinklers. Motioning for the squad to follow me, we moved towards one of the corridors. A split second before we entered, a sharp tingling feeling tickled the back of my neck—

—and then the world exploded in a blinding flash of light and sound.

I staggered back from the flashbang grenade—which had also hit me with a wave of concussive force. As my vision began to clear up and my hearing came back, I saw shapes moving around and gunfire breaking the silence. "Vasir!" I yelled, getting out of the line of fire. "We're taking fire and are pinned down! Mercs, I think!"

_"White and black armour? Red highlights?"_ Seemed my hearing had recovered faster than my sight.

Squinting through the haze clouding my vision, I tried to ignore the random shots that ricocheted off my shields. I only ducked back to avoid a rocket that whistled towards me. "Yeah, I think so," I replied. "They're well-armed, too! Recognize them?"

_"You could say that," _Vasir laughed. _"Say hello to the Shadow Broker's private army, Commander!"_

Great. I blinked away the last few stars from my eyes and consulted my HUD. "Team One; we're gonna tackle the mercs," I ordered. "Team Two will provide covering fire until we're in position. Then we'll distract them while Team Two moves around to flank them."

Team Two started things off with a barrage of EMPs and gunfire. Then I led Team One through the corridor and into a room full of desks and computers. Garrus had done such a good job coordinating things that we managed to take out one or two mercs before finding a couple desks to hide behind. There were only two more mercs in here—one of whom was toting that rocket launcher. "Team Two: go!"

We fired off a couple shots to distract the mercs while Team Two made their move. It didn't take long before we heard more gunfire. Problem was: my ears told me the gunfire wasn't coming from in front of us. "Garrus?"

_"More mercs. We got it covered."_

"Understood." I cut the comm channel before filling Team One in. "Team Two's got their own mercs to play with. These guys are all ours."

Samara promptly used her biotics to yank one of the mercs out from behind cover. Grunt tagged him with a concussive round that sent him flying into the wall on the far side of the room. I used that distraction to move in on the last merc. Kasumi dropped an EMP on her just before I arrived, knocking out her shields and temporarily scrambling the firing controls of her rocket launcher. Before she could do anything, I was right on top of her, fists flying and guns blazing.

After the merc dropped to the ground, I peeked around the corner. Any hopes I might have had that the coast was clear were dashed by the asari sneaking my way. She paused for a moment, perhaps debating whether to shoot me with her shotgun or hit me with her biotics.

Miranda didn't wait for her to make up her mind, sending a sizzling biotic blast at her. I ducked for cover behind the wall and checked my HUD. Sure enough, the asari was heading our way. Now if she could get a little bit closer...

The sudden hail of bullets told me that the asari, so intent on unleashing a world of hurt on us, had walked right into Team Two's line of fire. I held up three fingers so Team One could see, then silently counted down. On 'one', we wheeled around the corner and opened fire. Seeing that two more of the Shadow Broker's mercs had joined the asari, I quickly activated my cloak and pulled out my sniper rifle, double-checking that my disruptor mod was activated. While the squad took out the asari and started dishing out the damage to one of the remaining mercs, I lined up a headshot on the last merc and took him out.

Now that we were in the clear, I could afford to restock on thermal clips. I bent over to pick one up...

...only to feel the back of my neck tingling again. I quickly dove into a somersault, rolling along the floor—and managing to scoop up the thermal clip in the process. My quick move saved my ass—or at least my shields—from getting blasted by another rocket. How many of these guys were there?

I quickly checked my HUD. One more merc at 12 o'clock—the one who's best friend was the rocket launcher—and at least half a dozen at 10 o'clock. **(4)** "Team Two will lay down covering fire again before moving up to deal with the mercs on our left," I decided. "Team One will take out the merc up ahead, then move up and try to flank the other mercs.

I waited for the cover fire to start before leading Team One in a mad dash. Grunt overtook me in his eagerness to reach the merc and, well, let's just say she wouldn't be getting out of the wall any time soon. While Grunt was doing his happy dance, we started creeping towards the mercs. One of them was in the process of deploying a combat drone. That would be the last combat drone he'd send off, I decided. Activating my cloak, I centred my scope on his head and squeezed the trigger. The sniper round went right through his shields and blew his head apart like a nice, ripe melon. Kasumi shorted out one of the merc's shields. Legion started harassing him with a freshly generated combat drone of their own before firing their sniper rifle at another hapless merc. Miranda and Grunt tag-teamed yet another merc while Samara helped Kasumi finish off 'her' merc.

Looking around, I spotted a merc sporting tech armour along with the usual shields. He was trying to poach on my turf by mixing in a bolt of plasma along with the usual round of bullets. Using my HUD, I got Garrus and Tali to take out his shields before cloaking and firing off a shot from my sniper rifle. Didn't quite finish him off, but I did shatter his tech armour and leave a nice big dent in his helmet, one that Zaeed promptly turned into a gaping hole with a concussive round.

By that point, there were only two mercs left. "You're outnumbered by over six to one," I yelled out. "Wanna surrender?"

The mercs replied with a burst of bullets and a rocket. "Well, at least you offered," Miranda said, knocking out the latter's shields with an EMP.

"Yeah" I agreed, setting the merc on fire. "No one can say I didn't try."

"Very considerate of you."

"I thought so."

While Miranda and I were chatting, Team Two was finishing off the last merc. I checked my HUD again, but there were no more hostiles in the area. So I took the opportunity to double back and search for goodies. Found another pack of medi-gel and some more credits—always welcome treats in my book.

When I rejoined the squad, they were clustered in front of a flight of stairs—and the raging inferno that was blocking them. Looked like a couple pipes running along the ceiling had ruptured, and whatever they were carrying had caught fire. "That could be a problem," I observed.

"Working on it." Turning to my left, I saw Tali in another room, tinkering with some valve controls. She tapped in one last command. "Well?"

I gave her a thumbs up as the flames abruptly died off. "Good job, Tali. I knew you could—ooh! Eezo!"

For some reason, Tali sighed as I squeezed past her to scoop up some refined eezo that was lying around. I managed to salvage some of the machinery in that room as well. Never know when it might come in handy—or when you could sell it off for creds. **(5) **

Once I was done, I raced up the stairs. I was rewarded for my haste with a barrage of bullets that took out my shields. Three mercs, armed and looking for a fight. They moved towards me, no doubt hoping to take advantage of my weakened state. I let them acquire a line of sight on me before activating my cloak. They stopped and gawked at my vanishing act. Big mistake—the rest of the squad had caught up at that point.

Once the last merc had collapsed, we continued on our way, eyes peeled for bad guys, loot and, most importantly, Liara. We didn't see any more mercs, but we did manage to pick up some more thermal clips. I also found a schematic for a heavy pistol upgrade—I decided to download that instead of questioning why the heck a company specializing in star charts had a weapons schematic lying around.

We followed the corridor to a sealed door. I cracked a wall safe while the rest of the squad was getting into position and loading fresh thermal clips into their weapons. I was just about to join the squad when a shot rang out. Then another one.

Uh oh.

* * *

Slapping the door controls, we charged into the room. Vasir was there, smoke still trailing from her pistol. Another one of the Shadow Broker's mercs lay dead at his feet. To my left, a blood trail led from a messy splatter on the wall to a salarian on the floor.

"Damn it," Vasir cursed, holstering her pistol. "If I'd been a few seconds faster, I could've stopped them."

The back of my neck started tingling again. I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because Vasir seemed a little too casual and nonchalant. Maybe it was because I didn't hear an honest note of regret or chagrin in her voice.

Or maybe my gut was trying to give me a hint. Keeping one eye on Vasir, I crouched down by the salarian and felt for a pulse. There was none, not that I was surprised. "Is this Sekat?"

"Must have been," Vasir replied.

I quickly searched his body. "No sign of that data Liara talked about," I sighed. I was batting zero-for-two here. "Looks like a dead end."

"Speaking of which," Vasir asked, "did you find your friend's body?"

"You mean this body?"

Liara stepped out of the shadows, drenched to the bone from the sprinklers, heavy pistol pointed squarely at Vasir's head. I wasn't sure how successful she'd be at a headshot, given how much her body was quivering. The look on her face told me she wasn't shaking with fear. "Liara? Something I should know?"

"This is the woman who tried to kill me."

Interesting.

"You've had a rough day, so I'll let that slide," Vasir laughed, slowly backing up towards a window as Liara advanced. "Why don't you put that gun down?"

"I saw you!" Liara cried. "I doubled back after I left. "I watched you break into my apartment!"

The tingling at the back of my neck coalesced into a firm jab. I pulled out my heavy pistol and aimed it at Vasir. The rest of the squad immediately followed suit. "So, what, you were just using me to find the message?" I asked.

Vasir shrugged. "Nothing personal, Shepard. Just needed a little help tracking down T'Soni."

"Once she had my location, she signaled the Shadow Broker's forces," Liara added. "They bombed the building in an attempt to take me out. She found Sekat, took his data, and killed him. I'm guessing she's still got the disk on her."

"Good guess," Vasir smiled, lifting her right hand to reveal the OSD she'd palmed. No doubt that move was meant to distract us from the left hand that she casually put behind her back. "Not that you'll ever see what's on it..."

A flare of biotics flashed out from Vasir's body, cracking the window.

...you pureblood _bitch_!"

With another biotic flare, Vasir shattered the window, sending hundreds of shards flying towards us. I instinctively ducked, along with the rest of the squad. Liara quickly waved her arms, creating a biotic sphere that rapidly expanded from her hands to cover the squad. The field flickered like a kaleidoscope as it absorbed the multiple impacts from all the glass.

Vasir gave us a look before turning around, clearly about to take advantage of our distraction to make her getaway. I knew I had to stop her. If she escaped, it would be next to impossible to track her down again—look how long it took me to find Saren. Besides, even if we found her, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't stash the OSD somewhere else. And since Liara was still generating her biotic field and the rest of the squad was still covering their eyes, it was up to me to stop her. Again.

Before my sense of self-preservation could assert itself, I ran through Liara's biotic field towards Vasir. Urgency must have added a bit of speed to my step, because I quickly closed the gap between us. I took one, two, three more steps, propelled myself in a flying leap...

...and promptly realized that I had way too much momentum.

Instead of tackling her to the floor like I'd intended, I rammed her straight into the window. Naturally, the whole thing shattered. We rolled across the windowsill and straight off the ledge.

As we plummeted towards the ground below, we rolled over and over, each of us striving to get the upper hand—or at least get on top. I noticed that Vasir was bathed in a glowing blue biotic field. At first I thought she was trying to slow us down so we didn't hit the pavement at terminal velocity. Turned out I was half right: after two or three rolls, she braced a foot against my gut and pushed, breaking my grip and sending me crashing to the ground.

I tried to get up, but I couldn't. Did I just have the wind knocked out of me? Or had that landing paralyzed me? I mean, I did kinda bellyflop against hard concrete.

Struggling to move, I managed to lift my head up enough to see Vasir slowly levitate to the ground. She turned around to face me, generating another blue biotic field in her hand. I watched as the biotic energies surged from a few blue wisps to a miniature maelstrom, the cold light only matched by the smile spreading over her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something—

—only to jerk her head up as another window shattered overhead.

Vasir's eyes widened briefly before she spun on her heels and bolted. A split second later, Liara landed.

I don't blame Vasir for running. The biotic field encasing Liara's body was positively crackling with energy, almost blinding in its intensity. Her fists were clenched so tight, I thought she'd break something. And her face...

...her face was contorted in a mask of pure rage and hatred. I'd never seen her that angry. Hell, I couldn't remember the last time _anyone _was that angry.

Liara took off after her without even pausing to see how I was doing. I managed to prop myself up to watch the chase—partly relieved that I hadn't gotten paralyzed after all. It was only then that I realized where we were: we had fallen all the way to the second floor, where I'd found the PDA full of creds and the first medical station full of medi-gel. It was kinda surreal watching Vasir and Liara sprinting through the area that I had just passed through.

Vasir sprinted through the plaza, arms pumping, but Liara was hot on her heels and gaining fast. In desperation, Vasir vaulted over a potted embankment before racing down the stairs, passing a pair of Shadow Broker mercs on their way up. Seeing Liara, the mercs raised their assault rifles. Liara didn't even pause. She thrust her right hand forward and released a biotic blast, smashing one merc into the ground. With a wave of her other hand, she swatted the second merc with the biotic equivalent of a flyswatter, smacking him back into one of the support columns. Neither of them got back up.

As I stumbled to my feet, the rest of the squad arrived, having taken a less suicidal method of reaching me. Miranda grabbed my arm and helped me stabilize myself. I would have said thanks or something, but that was when six more Shadow Broker mercs arrived.

Garrus managed to drop an EMP on two of them while I activated my cloak. Miranda and Kasumi quickly followed suit, rendering all but one of the mercs without shields. That last one wasn't able to enjoy his status for long, not with a quick shot to the head from my sniper rifle.

As I decloaked, I noticed that Jacob and Jack were in the process of levitating the mercs. Thane let them float helplessly in the air before detonating Jack's biotic field with his own biotics. Grunt and Zaeed tagged the other mercs with concussive rounds. Mordin and I promptly set the whole lot of them on fire.

The charred bodies had just collapsed to the ground when another wave of mercs arrived, this one led by an asari. Legion generated a combat drone right in front of them while I switched mods on my sniper rifle. That distracted the mercs long enough for Tali to drain the shields from one of the mercs. Miranda and Garrus hammered the asari's barriers. Then I delivered the coup de grace with my sniper rifle.

The rest of the mercs dropped within a minute, thanks to a sustained barrage of gunfire from the squad, mixed with the odd concussive round, biotic attack or fireball. Once the last merc was dead, we ran after Liara and Vasir, barely pausing to grab a spare thermal clip. "Liara," I yelled over the comm, "we're coming. Just hang on!"

_"Hurry! She's getting away!" _was all she said.

We ran down the stairs and found ourselves back on the ground floor of the Dracon Trade Centre. This time, however, not all of the bodies were dead. Nope, there were a few more mercs waiting for us, courtesy of the Shadow Broker. And by a few more, I mean a full dozen. Almost one-to-one odds.

The squad didn't need to wait for my orders before acting. While I cloaked and lined up a shot with my sniper rifle, five mercs had their shields zapped by EMPs. While I squeezed the trigger and blew someone's head off, one merc was getting fried to a crisp while four others were suddenly taking a break from gravity. While my cloak was shutting down, the floating mercs were suddenly getting their bodies riddled with bullets and their innards crushed like sardines.

That still left seven mercs. Seven mercs that were too busy gawking at the sudden demise of half their team to react while we found cover.

A rocket whistled through the air as I ducked behind a fallen support column. Guess they got over their temporary paralysis. I was just about to give the order when the only intact entrance to the Dracon Trade Centre opened. Four more mercs stormed in, guns blazing. That pretty much evened the odds. Again. To make matters worse, one of the newcomers was also toting a rocket launcher.

_"Shepard, where are you?"_

"Pinned down," I replied. "Eleven mercs. Would've been seven, but they got reinforcements."

Several gunshots rang out before Liara responded. _"I know. I heard Vasir order them to ignore me and go inside."_

"Don't suppose you were able to slow them down," I observed, selecting targets with my HUD.

_"I could only take out three of them without exposing myself. Hurry up and finish them off. Liara out."_

Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am. Aloud, I told my squad "You have your targets. Weapons free!"

Team Two promptly focused on the four newcomers. Garrus aimed his EMP at the merc holding the rocket launcher. Mordin and Zaeed took him out with a fireball and concussive round, timing things so their attacks landed at the same time. Tali drained the shields from another merc so Jacob and Jack could tag-team him with their biotics. Zaeed amused himself by taking on the other two mercs.

The other seven mercs were getting some TLC from Team One. **(6) **Miranda, Samara and Grunt took out the last merc with a rocket launcher. Another pair of mercs was getting harassed by Legion's combat drone on one side and a constant barrage from Legion and Thane on the other.

Kasumi and I were sneaking off to the right, courtesy of our cloaks. Our target must have thought he was out of danger, up until we seemingly materialized right in front of him. Once he had fallen, we made ourselves comfy in our new hidey-hole. Now we had three fronts from which to attack the Shadow Broker's goons. Only five of them now.

"Scratch one!"

Make that four.

"More hostiles coming in from the left!"

Make that eight.

"Combat drone!"

Make that nine. Well, maybe eight and a half. "Team Two, contain the party crashers!" I ordered. If we let them spread out, it would be even harder to deal with them, and things would go from absolutely annoying to potentially problematic. Or, with my luck, some bit of alliteration like delightfully deadly. "Team One, we have a few guests who've outstayed their welcome."

Miranda, Samara and Grunt dealt with the nearest merc while Kasumi and I handled the merc closest to us. Then we all ganged up on another merc who, up until that point, only had Legion and Thane to deal with.

Not to be outdone, Team Two had taken out a salarian merc, his human friend and his little drone too. As I watched, another merc doubled over and collapsed. That left two mercs inside the building. Three more were coming, according to my HUD... no, wait, make that two. Liara must've dropped one of them. We had a brief window before the reinforcements arrived. Might as well make the most of it.

With a quick command, I got Grunt to move a little closer to the entrance. As expected, the mercs took advantage of what seemed like a golden opportunity to eliminate a big, lumbering target. Little did they know that Grunt was surprisingly difficult to take down. That was kind of the point, you see. While they were distracted, we could take out the last two mercs. A second later, the door opened. Two mercs charged in, expecting to see their buddies under siege. What they found were a lot of dead bodies, twelve thoroughly peeved adversaries, and a roaring krogan charging towards them.

Suffice it to say, it was a short fight.

* * *

When we burst out of the Dracon Trade Centre, Liara and Vasir were busy hiding behind skycars and shooting at each other. Pretty even odds, thus far. Neither of them could step out and advance without opening themselves up.

Vasir looked up and saw us. I could just see the wheels turning in her head: now that the squad had arrived, the odds had drastically turned in our favour. Her only options at this point were to fight or flee. Crouching down behind the skycar, I saw her pull up a menu on her omni-tool and enter some commands.

A soft whirring sound came up from overhead. Our eyes instinctively shot skyward, just in time to see an orange-yellow skycar—just like the one Vasir was driving—fly by overhead. While we were distracted, Vasir made a run for it, shooting wildly in the process. Naturally, she missed. I mean, all she could hope to accomplish was forcing us to keep our heads down. Running and gunning with any degree of accuracy only works in the vids.

By the time we lifted our heads and raised our weapons, Vasir was already jumping off the ledge, a faint blue glow indicating her use of biotics to slow her descent again. A second later, the skycar swooped away with Vasir in the driver's seat. Liara fired a few futile shots after the skycar. "Damn it!" she cried out before running for the nearest skycar. "Son of a bitch!" she cursed before running for the next one. "Fuck!" she spat out before running for the next one.

Liara's curses got increasingly lurid and inventive as she went from skycar to skycar to skycar. The reason soon became clear: Vasir's shots weren't so wild after all. Every single shot had hit the propulsive drive of a skycar, which meant that turning it on would either get a gurgle and a lot of noise... or the whole thing would blow up. Very impressive, not to mention scary—if Vasir could do this on the run, I didn't want to think about what she was capable of when she actually turned to fight. But that thought would have to wait: Liara had finally found one skycar that _wasn't _busted. She hacked the door open, got in the passenger side, glared at me and made a "hurry up" motion.

"I'm fine, by the way," I told her as I got in the driver's seat. "Thanks for asking."

She shot me another glare. **(7)**

"Miranda, Legion; get in," I said, motioning to the back seats. **(8)** "Everyone else, repair the other skycars or find alternate means of transportation, and follow us as soon as possible."

"Come on, she's getting away!" Liara snapped.

"Let me start the skycar first," I replied, fingers already flying over the skycar's computer panel—and my omni-tool. A couple more keystrokes overrode the skycar's security systems—and selected a song from my collection. One more tap started the song. The drum was beating and the guitar was wailing as the skycar lifted off and we flew off in hot pursuit.

"_I'm a constant sinner,  
__A conscience killer.  
__I'm a righteous heartache,  
__Never gonna let you get close to mine.  
__I'm a punk every time.  
__Give a little room and I'll spit in your eye." _

It took a moment to find Vasir—even at night, there was a _lot _of traffic. Thankfully, Vasir was in a hurry to get away with the OSD she's swiped from Sekat's body. All we had to do was look for the skycar going over the speed limit. That narrowed it down to... um... two thirds of the traffic? "Keep your eyes peeled," I said. "One of us is bound to see Vasir sooner or later."

"There she is!"

And the prize went to Liara.

I hit the accelerator, hoping to catch up to Vasir. She already had a big headstart and—

"Gah!"

—and that headstart got a little bit bigger thanks to my sideswiping a skytruck that got in the way. **(9)**

"Hang a right," Liara said urgently. "No, wait, left!"

"I'm on her," I soothed, banking the skycar left around a building covered in a lot of neon. It had a couple giant screens as well, displaying advertisements—a volus trying to sell a popular beverage and some action vid, if I remember correctly. **(10)** Vasir's little fake jink didn't fool me, after all. I followed her as she flew out of sight behind a building. We saw the rear lights of her skycar just as it disappeared again—she'd hugged the building's facade and went around another corner in the hopes of losing us.

"Hang a left!" Liara yelled.

"I'm doing that!" I yelled back. Yeesh.

Vasir flew over a light post and between two skyscrapers on a downwards vector. I banked the skycar so it would skim underneath the light post, hoping to close the gap—

"Shepard!"

"There goes the light post!"

"I'm sure Illium doesn't skimp on traffic maintenance. Bad for business."

"Uh huh."

"'_Cause it don't mean all that much, does it?  
__But we never really had a choice.  
__No it don't mean all that much to us.  
__But we never really had a choice.  
__We're conscience killers." _

"She's around the corner," Liara cried out, just as Vasir's skycar—surprise, surprise—went around the corner. I shot Liara an irritated glance. "Gee, ya think?"

With that, I stomped my foot on the accelerator pedal.

"Wait!"

Another stomp pressed the accelerator pedal all the way—

"We're not going into the construction site, are—"

—and kept it firmly pressed against the floor.

"—oh, goddess!"

Vasir flew right through the construction site Liara mentioned, located smack-dab in the middle of a skyscraper. **(11)** So did I. She swerved around a support column to the left. So did I. She dodged a stack of construction supplies to the right. So did I. She dropped down until she was just barely skimming over the floor. So did—

"Gah!"

Okay, maybe I skimmed a little too low. Hopefully the owner of the skycar I'd borrowed had a little bit of insurance.

I followed Vasir's skycar as it flew out of the construction site and took a sharp right into a tunnel, ignoring the screen perched on top of the tunnel entrance advertising some hotel. Another skycar veered off in an attempt to avoid us. It wound up making an alternate entrance in a nearby shopping mall.

"I'm not letting her get away with that data," Liara seethed.

"Don't worry, we'll get her," I reassured her.

"How do you know?"

"Because we're in a red skycar," I replied.

Liara looked confused. "So?"

"So red ones go faster," Miranda said.

"Really, Shepard?" Liara asked.

"Really, Shepard-Commander?" Legion asked.

"Really," I confirmed.

"I wasn't actually serious," Miranda clarified, rolling her eyes for some reason.

"Really, Miranda? I was." **(12)**

"Why am I not surprised?"

_"I'm a red-blooded sickness.  
__There was no way around it.  
__I'm a fine line teaser.  
__Never been nothing but a cheater.  
__I'm a son of the night.  
__Give a little room and I'll spit in your eye."_

While we were debating the merits of red skycars, I'd managed to make up for Vasir's little headstart. We were only a couple hundred metres behind her now.

"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!" Liara urged as we blasted out of the tunnel and started weaving between skytrucks.

"I'm _going_," I snapped. Yeesh, she was starting to get annoying. I _did _know what was at stake, thank you very much. "Liara, anyone ever tell you that you're a backseat driver?" **(13)**

"But I'm in the front."

"Look it up the next time you're searching your information network."

"Only if you hurry up—traffic! Oncoming traffic!"

"We'll be fine," I said airily, zigzagging around skycars and skytrucks. It was actually quite picturesque, all the bright neon lights of the buildings, all the vibrant colours from the vid-screens… if only someone could mute all that honking of alarmed drivers, it would be perfect. And watch where they were going—a lime green skycar bumped into us. At least, I thought it was a bump. For some reason, the skycar lost control and crashed into a vid-screen. On the bright side, thousands of locals and tourists were spared from watching yet another advertisement for that really bad vid that was coming out next week. Very civic-minded of me, I thought.

"'_Cause it don't mean all that much, does it?  
__But we never really had a choice.  
__No it don't mean all that much to us.  
__But we never really had a choice.  
__We're conscience killers.  
__Don't want no conscience at all." _

Vasir seemed poised to drop into another tunnel before taking a sharp right into some maintenance corridor. If she was hoping to lose me, she was sorely mistaken. I think I was now a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten metres behind her now.

The gap between us was starting to close even more when the skycar's sensors suddenly detected an obstacle in our path. A very small obstacle that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere… or had been dropped off by Vasir. Listening to the sharp tingling at the back of my neck, I swerved to the left…

…just in time to avoid the sudden explosion.

"She's dropping proximity charges!" Liara belatedly realized.

"I noticed!" I tersely replied, dodging another charge. And another. And another.

Fourth time was the charm, unfortunately, as I didn't quite clear the last mine. The subsequent fiery explosion sent us careening off a nearby skytruck, snapping off its antennae like dry twigs off a tree. That unexpected detour saved us, however, from a pair of rockets that blasted right past us, detonating right beneath a wanted vid for Jack (or some other bald woman with a similar amount of ink).

Of greater concern were the rockets, though. "She's got reinforcements," Liara cried out, looking at the sensor readouts. "Two skycars, armed with rocket launchers."

"I don't suppose this thing has any guns?" I asked.

Liara looked at me helplessly as we entered another tunnel. "It's a taxi!"

"So... no guns?"

"It has a fare meter!"

"Wonderful," I sighed. Without any weapons, I was forced to start dodging in and out of traffic to make it harder for Vasir's buddies to shoot at me. At least they weren't trigger-happy: no doubt the prospect of running into a pile-up caused by their own rockets was less than appealing.

"Now, now," Miranda chided. "Not everyone has your particular brand of needs, Shepard."

"Was that a joke, Miranda?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh huh."

"Truck," Liara interrupted.

"I know." I wasn't the only one driving—or flying—recklessly. Vasir had alarmed some poor skytruck driver enough to pull out of his lane. Unfortunately, that driver didn't check the rearview or sideview vid-cams, resulting in a crash that sent several skytrucks and skycars flipping over and over.

"_Truck_!" Liara shouted as at least one of the skytrucks burst into flames.

"I _know_!" I shouted, driving up onto the tunnel wall to avoid the worst of the conflagration. I watched out of the corner of my eye as a skycar bounced past—not into—us.

On the bright side, we'd lost Vasir's reinforcements. "There we go!" I said cheerfully as we flew out of the tunnel.

"You're enjoying this," Liara accused me.

"Maybe just a little," I admitted.

"I'm surprised this hasn't alerted the cops," Miranda frowned.

"We took the liberty of disabling all incoming and outgoing transmissions to local authorities in the immediate vicinity," Legion informed us.

"Good thinking, Legion," I approved. An obnoxious honk from a passing skycar got my attention. "Get out of the way!" I yelled. "Where'd you learn to drive?"

"Pot. Kettle. Black," Miranda muttered.

"Shepard's style of driving is... unorthodox," Liara agreed.

"You know, I've been meaning to find some driving and flying sims for Shepard," Miranda mused.

"I could help you with that," Liara offered.

"My driving is fine, thank you very much," I said.

"Of course."

"Whatever."

I don't think they believed me.

"_I'm nails,  
__I'm a knife.  
__I'm a preacher with a gun,  
__I'm a one man lie.  
__I'm a king,  
__I'm a ruse.  
__I'm born again with no life to lose."_

Vasir and I flew over a bunch of corporate buildings, scattering birds and smashing through a couple billboards. Well, Vasir scattered the birds and I smashed the billboards—there were only two of them. Maybe three. **(14)** Hopefully, the owner was up to date on the insurance.

Vasir abruptly veered into the next lane in her ongoing effort to shake me. The skytruck that was abruptly cut off by her movements tried to jam on the brakes, only to lose control. I was forced to slow down as it started to bounce off buildings, skytrucks, monuments and pretty much everything between us and Vasir. Kinda reminded me of a skipping stone over water.

"A head-on collision at this speed..." Liara observed as the train wreck continued to unfold before us.

"Yeah, I hear those can be bad for you," I agreed.

At last, the skytruck lost propulsion and dropped out of the sky. All I could do was hope the driver was able to recover or bail out before it was too late. Now that there were no more obstacles—the skycars were being very cooperative in getting out of my way—I could try and catch up with Vasir.

"Gah!"

Oh right. That plan wouldn't work if I got held up by, say, a head-on collision with another skycar. Which was entirely possible since all the other skycars were going in the opposite direction. At least we hadn't crashed yet. Though it was entirely possible that the skycar we appropriated would lose its original coating of paint by the time this chase was over.

"Truck!" Liara yelled.

"Again?" I asked in exasperation.

I adjusted my vector to avoid the skytruck. Vasir did the same up ahead, though her vector sideswiped a skycar in the process—which wound up crashing into the skytruck.

"Watch out!" Liara warned, pointing to a heavily-laden skytruck. I don't think she trusted my driving. Couldn't imagine why—I was nowhere near the skytruck. I mean, it was several centimetres away, at least. Besides, it was driving a lot more aggressively than I was.

That gave me an idea.

Flying underneath the skytruck, I moved until it was directly between us and Vasir. Given how fast the skytruck was going, it wasn't long until we'd caught up. Then I moved out from under the skytruck's shadow, speeding around to Vasir's left. Her eyes widened as she spotted us. I took a hand off the control panel and gave her a jaunty wave.

She looked away, frowning in concentration as if thinking through her options. Having come to a decision, she jinked to the left and rammed into us.

"Gah!"

"Not my fault!" I declared.

"So defensive, Shepard?" Miranda asked.

"Hey!" I snapped. Spotting an incoming skycar, I let the skycar continue drifting to the left.

"We can confirm that Shepard-Commander is not at fault," Legion stated as we narrowly missed the skycar.

"Thanks."

"This time."

"Hey!"

Before the character assassination of my driving skills could continue, I swerved the skycar and rammed it into Vasir's skycar. **(15)** Payback's a bitch, after all.

The skycar bounced off, wobbling to the right before Vasir regained control. Shooting us a hostile glare, she drove the skycar towards us. Having some forewarning this time, I was ready. Our skycars crashed into each other, sparks flying as we flew together.

Shooting a quick glance up ahead, I assessed the battlefield and made a decision on the fly. **(16) **I eased up on the accelerator, letting Vasir shove me aside, before tilting my skycar, jamming on the accelerator pedal and slamming into Vasir's skycar. The impact sent her careening into the next lane...

...and crashed into another skycar.

Vasir quickly lost control, her skycar spinning round and round, with fire bursting out from the sides. After a couple dizzying seconds, she finally crashed on one of the terraces of a nearby building.

As I took a more controlled descent, I opened a comm channel. "Garrus? Gimme a sitrep."

_"There were some parking lots full of skycars, but we decided to skip them," _Garrus said. _"Believe it or not, they have YMIR mechs at all the entrances."_

Everyone winced—well, everyone except Legion. Out of all the hostiles I had the dubious pleasure of meeting since getting spaced, YMIR mechs were definitely at the top of my 'aw, crap' list. I didn't blame Garrus for wanting a pass.

"Why the hell is parking enforcement beefing up security with heavy mechs?" I wanted to know.

We heard a snort over the comm. _"They want to guarantee that they can gouge their customers?"_

"That operational doctrine seems counterproductive to long-term economic objectives," Legion stated.

_"Whatever the reason, we decided to repair the skycars that Vasir shot up instead. Tali's almost finished fixing one of them. We'll load it up and send it your way while Tali starts on another one."_

"Understood," I replied. "We just forced Vasir to crash land on some building. Transmitting coordinates now."

_"Wait. So _Vasir _crashed and not _you_?"_

"That's right, Garrus," Miranda called out before I could reply. "Somehow we're still flying. We're not even on fire."

_"That's surprising," _Tail chimed in.

"There was a low statistical probability of this outcome occurring," Legion agreed.

_"Damn it!"_ Zaeed cursed. _"You tellin' me I lost the goddamn pool?"_

_"You and everyone else,"_ Jack grumbled.

Traitors, I thought as we descended towards Vasir's crashed skycar. I'm surrounded by traitors.

"'_Cause it don't mean all that much, does it?  
__But we never really had a choice.  
__No it don't mean all that much to us.  
__But we never really had a choice.  
__We're conscience killers.  
__Don't want no conscience at all." _**(17)**

* * *

_(1): 'Ground floor' is a misnomer, since the Dracon Trade Centre was built on top of the Notron Multimedia Metroplex. This means that Shepard and his squad landed ninety-seven metres above ground. _

_(2): A human colloquialism cautioning against assuming the outcome of some activity until it has actually concluded._

_(3): It's a testament to Shepard's unique method towards battlefield operations that he was able to search for the PDA and crack its encryption, in a matter of seconds, without significantly delaying the search._

_(4): A simplistic method used by humans to denote direction, based on human analog clocks that used physical "hands" or pointers to signify the time in hours, minutes and seconds. In this case, "12 o'clock" would be right in front of them, while "10 o'clock" would be to the left and slightly ahead._

_(5): I must confess to laughing when I read this part. Further evidence, if it was actually needed, that some things never changed. _

_(6): An acronym for Tender Loving Care, used ironically in this case. _

_(7): I'm ashamed to admit that Shepard's description of my behaviour—and the preceding language—was entirely accurate, though perhaps the latter can be excused given my paternal ancestry. _

_(8): When asked for the rationale behind his choice, Shepard offered a simple answer: "Because." I sympathize with readers and historians who found that response entirely uninformative and unhelpful._

_(9): Actually, the skytruck was parked in a stationary 'hover' position, so it did not 'get' in the way of Shepard. _

_(10): The beverage was 'Red Janey,' an energy drink purported to temporarily combat fatigue and restore mental alertness. I cannot recall the action vid, as I had not been following such media developments at the time._

_(11): The sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth floors, to be exact. While the 'renovation' gutted those floors until there was nothing left but support columns and a small amount of construction material, Shepard still managed to find a way to hit something. _

_(12): Believe it or not, this is an actual, albeit unofficial, literary trope that occasionally occurred in various forms of human media. _

_(13): Another human expression, referring to a vehicle passenger in the backseat who is uncomfortable with the driver's skills, seeks to provide unsolicited driving instructions to the driver, or both. If readers aren't already aware of Shepard's penchant for archaic colloquialisms, they will be by the end of this collection__. _

_(14): By my recollection, it was five._

_(15): __'Character assassination' implies that any questions towards Shepard's driving skills were baseless and had no foundation. This was not the case. _

_(16): In this case, calling the traffic a battlefield was not an exaggeration._

_(17): 'Conscience Killer,' a rock song released by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in 2010. This was the first time I was exposed to Shepard's habit of playing twentieth and twenty-first century human music at the oddest times. It was… an interesting experience, to say the least. _


	3. The Power of Guilt

**Chapter 3: The Power of Guilt**

It wasn't too hard finding a spot to land, even though there were a lot of skycars parked already. The only downside was that there wasn't enough space to park next to Vasir's skycar, so we had to find a spot several hundred metres away.

Liara hopped out as I touched down, before I could even shut my skycar down. "Come on," she urged, "she can't have gotten far."

Miranda and I got out of the skycar. Legion moved to follow, then paused. "Alert: unidentified targets detected on approach vector."

We followed Legion's gaze. They were right: a skycar was definitely coming in—way too fast for my liking. I quickly activated the comm, switching to the squad frequency. "Garrus? We've got company. Any chance that's you?"

_"No."_

"Reinforcements from the Shadow Broker!" Liara realized. "They're trying to slow us down!"

"Garrus, you better hurry," I told him before signing off. "All right: looks like they're all ours. Let's get ready."

We pulled out our weapons, loaded fresh thermal clips and watched as the mercs approached. Miranda shook her head in dismay. "They're blocking the door!"

She was right. We hadn't seen any sign of Vasir since we knocked her out of the sky. Unless she was hiding in her skycar or had broken through a window, the most likely explanation was that she escaped into this building through the doors. The mercs would beat us to—and block—the door before we could get there, which meant the only way to pursue Vasir was to fight through these mercs.

As the skycar touched down, I realized a couple things. First, the skycar was more like a platform, similar to the powered lifts used by starports to move freight supplies around. Second, that meant that the mercs—four or five of them, I counted—could storm off the platform with weapons firing, unlike the skycar we'd used.

Third, and most importantly, all the mercs were clustered together. "Miranda, Liara; you're up."

"My pleasure," Miranda replied before launching an EMP. The way all the mercs were packed together, there was no way they could avoid it. Four of the mercs lost their shields instantly. The last one kept a sizable chunk of his shields, which suggested that he was the boss of that particular band of misfits. Either that, or he'd saved up for a stronger shield unit.

Liara followed up by generating a biotic singularity right in the middle of the mercs. **(1)** The four mercs who'd lost their shields suddenly found themselves being yanked off their feet, spinning round and round like a boat caught in a whirlpool. Again, it was the boss who kept his feet firmly planted on terra firma. **(2)** I could see his shields flickering and flaring as they struggled against the biotic forces, straining as they were forced to do something they weren't designed to do.

Lifting my omni-tool, I set one of the floating mercs on fire. As I'd hoped, he also set his companions on fire whenever he bumped into them. What can I say: I like to share. Meanwhile, Legion lifted their sniper rifle and fired a shot at the merc boss. **(3)** Wasn't quite enough to take him out, but it certainly blew his shields apart. I finished him off with a couple pistol shots while Miranda and Liara amused themselves with the floating, burning mercs.

I was just about to switch over to one of the remaining mercs—only two, by this point—when I thought to check my HUD. "More guys coming in on our left," I warned.

"Reinforcements for us or them?" Miranda asked.

"If it's the latter, we'll take them out," Liara replied, her tone a bit too grim for my liking.

It did wind up being the latter. Unfortunately, the mercs had already landed by the time we got over. Which meant a slightly different tactic would be required. "Legion, combat drone," I requested.

The drone kept the mercs occupied while we approached. Following my directions, we opened fire, just long enough to drain the shields from as many mercs as possible. Then Liara deployed another singularity. It only caught two of the mercs, but that effectively reduced their strength by half. Especially once I dropped one of the remaining mercs in his tracks with a head shot.

We exchanged gunshots with the mercs who could fight back, keeping them more or less pinned down. I kept an eye on the mercs who were spinning around, though. As soon as I saw the singularity start to wane in strength, and the mercs begin to descend, I yelled out "Miranda! Now!"

Miranda promptly spun on her heels and sent a biotic blast flying. The singularity exploded in a blue surge of light, sending the two mercs formerly caught in its grip flying. I managed to snag one of them with a fireball. The other one flew out of sight. "I'll get that one," I told the others. "The rest are all yours."

I raced after 'my' merc, wanting to get to him before he could rejoin the fight. For once, luck was on my side: he was still struggling to his feet when I found him. He looked up just in time to meet my fists.

When I got back, I saw that my ad-hoc team had things well in hand. One of the mercs had apparently tried to deploy a combat drone to even the odds. That plan had backfired, though, as Legion had hacked the drone and sent it back on its erstwhile master. Liara was busy exchanging pot-shots with the other merc. Miranda was crouching down behind a skycar, though, blinking furiously.

I dropped down beside her. "Miranda, you all right?"

She squinted at me. "What?"

"Are you all right?"

"What?"

Ah. Guess she caught a flashbang in the face. Nothing else I could do but keep on fighting, let her sight and hearing come back and hope the mercs didn't get any more—

"Reinforcements!"

Aw, crap.

Looking up, I saw Liara was right. Two, no, _three _skycars. Two open-topped, one closed. "Hurry up and finish them off, people! Things are gonna get a lot hotter in a minute!"

I spun on my heels and jogged towards the inbound skycars. Miranda followed—she'd evidently recovered enough to figure out what was going on and where she'd be most useful. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Legion finish off 'their' merc with a sniper shot. Liara followed suit with a spray of bullets from her submachine gun. They'd be joining us very soon. Which was good, considering that all three skycars had just touched down.

"Garrus," I yelled over the comm as the third skycar—the one with the closed hatch—opened up, "where's my backup?"

Two EMPs exploded over the mercs—one more than I had expected. About half of the mercs got yanked off their feet—some by Liara's singularity, the rest by someone else. One merc suddenly went flying, doubled over as if he'd been hit in the stomach by something moving at high velocity.

"Never mind," I said, somewhat lamely. I guess the squad had picked up enough of my bad habits that they could follow them without my guidance. **(4)** Kasumi had fired her EMP at the same time Miranda did; Samara yanked a couple mercs skyward at the same time Liara made them spin round and round; and Grunt had tagged a merc with his concussive round at the same time...

...actually, we hadn't done anything yet. "Legion; sniper time on three, two..."

I didn't bother finishing the countdown, mostly because talking or breathing heavily might throw off my aim. Instead, I cloaked, raised my sniper rifle and fired. Legion fired at the same time, resulting in two more mercs losing their heads simultaneously—and literally.

Thane detonated Liara's singularity with his biotics at the same time Legion deployed another combat drone. The drone zipped forward towards a pair of mercs, only to veer off as they got trampled over by a roaring, enthusiastic Grunt. So it wound up harassing the stunned mercs who'd been thrown every which way by the exploding singularity. Miranda, Liara, Legion and I joined in. Except we harassed with bullets.

Merc after merc dropped like flies. Things were going well.

Naturally, the back of my neck started tingling.

Checking my HUD, I saw another skycar landing. "Kasumi, Liara, Legion; with me. Everyone else, finish off those mercs."

The four of us moved towards the newcomers. We were about fifty metres away when shields started taking fire and blinking out. Normally, that's good news.

Except, this time, it was our shields that were getting drained. This batch of mercs must be really good shots. We hastily took cover behind some of the skycars, moving around as they spread out. Carefully peeking around a skycar's taillights, I could see another merc doing the same thing. Only that merc was a little too exposed. I debated engaging my cloak and tagging him with my sniper rifle, only to drop that idea—that would delay my shield regeneration cycle, which I _really _wanted to do right now. Instead, I switched to my submachine gun and fired, carefully draining his shields in bursts of three shots. The merc, suddenly aware of his vulnerability, moved back briefly before leaning forward. No doubt he was hoping that _I _would be out of cover in the hopes of getting a better line-of-sight, thus exposing myself. Instead, _he _was one exposed. And, shortly, on fire. That guy jerked up and stumbled back, trying to pat out the flames. All he did was set a couple of his buddies on fire—forcing them to break cover and make themselves nice, fat targets—before burning to a crisp.

Looking around, I saw that things were going pretty well. Miranda had assumed command of Grunt, Samara and Thane. They'd finished off one batch of mercs and were greeting another one with EMPs, biotics, concussive rounds and bullets. Kasumi had stripped a couple mercs of their shields, just before they got caught up in another one of Liara's singularities. Legion was standing up, which didn't seem like a bright idea at first. Upon closer examination, however, I realized that they'd activated a custom shield program, one that let them soak up a lot more damage. They were using that to draw fire while sniping targets one by one.

Taking advantage of Legion's distraction, I activated my cloak—since my shields had since regenerated—lined up a shot and sniped a merc of my own.

"Damn it," I heard one of the mercs curse. "These guys are a lot tougher than the sims."

Imagine that.

"Just hang on," another merc said. "We've got some reinforcements com—urk!"

He went down with a bang, thanks to Garrus. But he'd blabbed long enough to tell me that there were some more mercs on the way. Seeing that Miranda had the remainder of the mercs under control, I motioned for my team to follow me. Time to set a little trap.

We were in position by the time the next skycar arrived. I counted down from three, then pumped my fist down. Kasumi immediately popped up and fired an EMP, hitting all five of them before their skycar even landed. Liara created a singularity a split second later, yanking four of the five mercs off their feet. Legion amused themselves by sniping one of the floating mercs while the fifth merc scrambled for cover. Unfortunately for him, he scrambled right into the scope of my sniper rifle.

I ducked down as my cloak disengaged and checked on the rest of the squad. Samara and Thane were finishing off a pair of mercs with their biotics. Grunt knocked another merc over with a concussive round before Miranda grabbed him with her biotics, yanked him up in the air, then slammed him back down.

Over on our end, Kasumi and Liara were methodically shooting the floating mercs with their pistols, making them twitch and spasm in a morbidly amusing fashion. Legion had spawned another combat drone, which was cheerfully beeping and sending electrical surges into any hapless merc that drifted within range, before drilling a hole into the head of another merc. Not wanting to miss the fun, I aimed my omni-tool, waited for a round of plasma to heat up and let it fly. That little fireball thoroughly fried my target, as well as delivering the coup de grace to the last couple survivors.

Looking up, I saw another trio of skycars headed our way. I raised my sniper rifle up and peered through the scope. Two of them had closed hatches, but were too far away for me to see inside. The third one, though, had an open-top. I could tell that that one, which was also the one in front, had another four or five Shadow Broker mercs.

I could also tell which one was doing all the steering.

Activating my cloak, I lined up a shot... breathed out... focused my aim... and fired.

The driver slumped over the controls of the skycar, which promptly lost control. It zigged and zagged for a couple seconds, dropped out of the sky like a rock, swept over our heads and smashed into another skycar—the one that had brought the first wave of mercs to greet us. The surviving mercs jumped at the last second, just before the crash. Unfortunately, momentum was not on their side. All four of them landed with a horrendous crack, snapping hardsuit plates and bones with enough force to make us wince. Clearly, they wouldn't be causing us any trouble.

"Shepard!"

I turned towards Liara, who was investigating the crash. "We can climb over the skycars to get to Vasir!"

She was right. The crash had knocked the first skycar out of the way. Not by much, but enough for even Grunt to squeeze by.

Even better, the other two skycars had landed. From a distance, I could see the rest of my squad bailing out. I waited until they joined us. Garrus looked around at all the bullet-ridden, occasionally charred bodies.

"What did we miss?" he asked innocently.

* * *

After bringing everyone up to speed, we fanned out to restock on thermal clips. Also managed to hack a bank terminal for creds and retrieved a med-kit hiding underneath the driver's seat of my skycar. Liara was practically bouncing on her feet by the time I gave the order to move out.

The closest way to Vasir's skycar was along a walkway built out of expensive wood panels and into an even more expensive suite, so that's where we went. It was one of those open-concept designs: big living room with an adjoining kitchen tucked next to the bedroom. And by 'big living room', I mean _huge_. It was almost twice the space of my cabin. Most of the furniture—made in the most modern fashion and covered in the richest fabrics imaginable—took up one part of the room, which left a ton of room.

A half dozen LOKI mechs lay strewn on the floor. Guess they were security. Judging by the way they were riddled with bullets and lying in a mess of torn wiring and leaking conductive fluid, I'd gathered they weren't particularly effective security. **(5)**

I was just in the middle of poking through the kitchen for the creds in the wall safe—though why someone would store their valuables next to their edibles is beyond me—when I heard something.

"Please let me live. Please let me live."

More to the point, someone.

"I'll do the mantras every week. I'll give to charity."

Someone doing a good job of hiding, but a bad job of staying hidden. Motioning for the squad to follow, I headed towards the voice, emptying a med-kit along the way.

"I'll go back to the Citadel and get a good job, I swear!"

The voice came from a large bedroom. Two people were hiding by the side of a very expensive bed. One of them, an asari, was the one I'd heard earlier. She looked up and whimpered. Then she scrunched herself up into a ball, squeezed her eyes shut and clammed up. Her companion, a male human, threw up his hands defensively. "Hey, we're unarmed," he insisted. "We didn't see anything."

"Okay," I nodded amiably. I glanced around the room. Nothing here to loot. Nothing here to see...

...

...um...

...nothing except a vid-screen showing a bunch of asari in skin-tight clothing dancing. And writhing in front of a very attentive audience. And doing things that made their... curves... look very, _very _appealing.

"Liara?" I said slowly as several pics of neon-lit ads with words like "CASINO" and "LIMITED TIME OFFER" screamed out, "what kind of place is this?"

"The Azure Hotel," Liara replied. "It's a luxury resort with an… exotic edge."

I raised an eyebrow as a row of asari joined the neon lights and began a series of synchronized high-kicks. "You don't say."

"'Azure' is slang for a part of the asari body in some areas of Illium."** (6)**

A sudden surge of mischief swept through me. "Where?" I asked.

"Mainly the lower regions. Near the bottom."

I gave Liara a wicked smile. "I meant, where on the asari body?"

Liara returned my smile. "So did I."

...

...

...

Well.

_That _plan had just backfired horribly.

By the time I'd recovered, the squad was shooting me knowing looks... and Miranda was shooting daggers out of her eyes.

"Um... just a little bit of fun?" I tried.

Those daggers turned into broadswords.

"Uh huh," Garrus chortled.

"Psst! Shep!" Kasumi stage-whispered. "Maybe you oughta stop while you're only neck deep!"

Sage advice. Hoping my face wasn't as red as, well, hoping it wasn't red, I left the bedroom and headed for the door. Not the door I came in, but the other one. The one that led to the area where Vasir crashed. **(7)**

As we crossed the living room, Tali caught up with me. "Good job," she offered.

"Thanks," I muttered sourly.

"Well, that too," she laughed before getting more serious. "I meant keeping Liara alive."

I cast a surreptitious glance at Liara, who was already rummaging through Vasir's skycar. "Remember when she used to be so quiet and gentle and…"

"Just a little too innocent for her own good?" Tali finished.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Now she's all angry and violent and obsessed. I don't think I like this new Liara."

"Maybe the old Liara's still there," Tali said hopefully. "Just buried really, really deep."

"You think so?" I asked.

"I hope so."

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

At that point, we'd arrived at Vasir's skycar, so we had to wrap up the conversation. Liara handed me a couple power cells and a datapad with schematics for some kind of upgrade, no doubt hoping that I'd skip straight to the hunt now that someone had done the looting for me. I did a cursory search anyway, but I didn't find anything else inside the skycar. What interested me was what I found _outside _the skycar.

"A blood trail," Garrus murmured. "Vasir must have gotten hurt in the crash."

He was right. There was a trail of blue droplets, almost invisible in the shadows cast from the surrounding lights. And my hardsuit sensors identified the DNA as asari. I breathed a sigh of relief. "That should slow her down."

The blood trail led around the walkway. In some areas, that trail became a veritable stream of blood. I wasn't the only one who noted that. "She's lost a lot of blood," Liara observed. "We have to be getting close."

"She's tough, I'll give her that much," I said.

"She's a Spectre," Miranda pointed out, coming up beside me. "What did you expect?"

"Fair enough," I allowed. I looked around. No one else was within earshot. Just in case, I opened a private comm frequency. "Miranda? We okay?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't we be?"

"I just thought you might have, well, misinterpreted my joke earlier."

"I didn't. A bit immature, perhaps, but I know it was all in good fun."

"Exactly. Nothing more."

"Nothing more."

"I didn't mean anything by it."

"Yes, I know. Now can we focus? We're trying to catch up to Vasir, remember?"

"And I don't want us to be distracted by lingering issues."

"Then stop worrying. Because there aren't any lingering issues."

If only I could believe that. It really was just a bit of fun. A joke—even if the joke was on me. That's all. I certainly didn't harbor any feeling towards Liara. Nothing romantic, at least. Anything I did feel was concern at how Liara had changed—and not for the better. But I couldn't figure out how to say that, or how to reassure Miranda that she didn't have to worry about my straying, without digging my own grave. **(8)**

A scream rang out before a couple—human; one man, one woman—ran past us in varying degrees of undress. We backtracked their movements—and followed Vasir's blood trail—to another enormous suite full of expensive furnishings, expensive paintings and a lot of broken mechs. I guess a wounded Spectre shooting up security would kill the mood. The couple was in such a hurry to leave that they left their personal datapad behind—which happened to have ready access to a small account of creds. Note to self: never leave your financial details lying around where any shameless kleptomaniac could find it.

There were also a couple med-kits lying around. What exactly did Azure think would happen that would require easy access to medi-gel? On second thought, I decided, I didn't want to know.

The most important thing to note was the blood trail, which had grown from droplets to the odd stream to actual blue, bloody footsteps. Looked like Vasir was actually stepping in her own blood and tracking it behind her, whether because her movements were becoming increasingly unsteady or because she was just losing that much blood. On the one hand, that was good—a wounded target was a lot easier to track. On the other hand, a wounded target could be the most dangerous, because he—or she, in this case—had less and less to lose. Especially when cornered.

We tracked the bloody footsteps out of the suite and along the wood-paneled walkway to an outside restaurant. People of various races—mostly human and asari—were dressed in the most elegant and formal attire, wining and dining away, laughing without a care in the world. Completely oblivious to the armed asari bleeding through their midst or the equally armed—but not bleeding or limping—squad hot on her heels.

I was about to order the squad to spread out and shadow her. Hopefully, we could find a quiet, secluded place to cut her off without all the civvies in the line of fire—

"Vasir!" Liara shouted. "It's over!"

Aw, crap. So much for that plan.

Vasir slowly turned around, almost succeeding in masking the slight, almost imperceptible limp in her step. I could see the wheels in her head spinning as she assessed her options. Her eyes narrowed as she saw a nearby waitress.

Again—aw, crap.

"Hey! Hey, you!" she called out. "Come here." A biotic field shimmered to life around her. It suddenly flared with a brilliant light…

…and then she…

…she suddenly appeared right behind the waitress! Like a freaking teleporter in one of those sci-fi vids. What the heck just happened?

All I know was one second, she was at least ten metres from the waitress. The next second, she was right behind her; arm around her neck, pulling her off balance, pistol out and aimed squarely at my noggin.

"What's your name?" Vasir asked the shocked waitress.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the crowd jump up and run, finally realizing that their elegant dinner party had been thoroughly crashed. At least all the civvies would get out of harm's way. Now we just had to get out of the goddamn hostage situation that Liara had forced us into like some hothead. **(9) **

"M-Mariana," the waitress stammered, finally realizing the predicament she was in.

"Mariana, you want to live, don't you?" Vasir purred. "Tell those people that you want to live."

"Please…" Mariana whimpered.

"We'll get you out of here safely, Mariana," I soothed. Somehow. My eyes started darting around, trying to get a sense of the terrain and what I had to work with.

"Well, that's good to hear," Vasir smiled. "You know, Shepard, this could have been avoided. All you had to do was walk away. But you just had to follow me, didn't you? Now…" She jammed her pistol into Mariana's head. "Now it gets ugly."

"Please," Mariana whimpered. "I have a son."

"A son?" Vasir repeated in mock horror, a cold smile spreading slowly, cruelly over her face. "I hope he gets to see you again. I've heard losing a parent is just _horrific _for children. Scars them for life."

Silent tears trickled down Mariana's face, her body quivering in fear and horror. Liara was quivering too, but for a completely different reason. "I'm going to _end _you, Vasir," she seethed.

"It's okay, Liara," I said. "We'll handle it." I lifted my pistol and pointed it at Vasir. "The usual way." **(10)**

Vasir raised an eyebrow as the squad followed suit. "You want Mariana's little boy to grow up without a mommy, Shepard? Thermal clips on the ground, now," she snapped, her voice abruptly hardening. "Power cells, too."

An idea came to mind. I quickly ran it through, formulating it on the fly. Yes. Yes, it could work. All I had to do was keep this standoff going a little longer while I set my plan in motion. And what better way to do that than to open my mouth and let it loose? "Hiding behind a hostage, Vasir?" I laughed, surreptitiously activating my HUD. "What's the matter? You scared? No stomach for a real fight? Figured as much. What else could you expect… from an _asari_?"

"Drop the thermal clips, Shepard," Vasir repeated.

"You girls should really just stick to dancing, shaking your booty, whoring yourself out to anyone and anything with a pulse," I sneered. "You know, play to your strengths."

Vasir was looking slightly confused—and alarmed. Guess none of the reports she'd read about me had ever mentioned anything like this. Which, to be honest, was sort of the point. "Drop the clips!" she shouted.

"Here's how things'll play out," I told her. "I'm gonna kill your hostage, Vasir. And then I'm gonna show you how a _real _Spectre gets things done."

"You're bluffing," Vasir hissed.

"Am I?" I grinned.

Mariana let out a sob.

Vasir's aim shifted, briefly moving away from Mariana and towards me.

"Now!" I shouted.

With a gesture and a sudden blue flash, Liara yanked the table that she had been levitating with her biotics into motion. It shot forward like a rocket, hitting Vasir at just the right angle to jar her loose from her hostage and knock her into a nearby shallow pool with a large splash.

We quickly ran to Mariana, who had fallen to her hands and knees. I gently, but hurriedly, lifted to her feet. "Sorry about that," I apologized. "I didn't mean any of that. I just had to distract her. You okay?"

She looked at me numbly. "No?" she offered at last, shaking her head.

"Fair enough," I sighed. "Look, you've probably had enough of this place for one day. Go home. Hug your son."

She mutely nodded before stumbling off. I watched her leave, grateful that we'd managed to avoid any casualties.

Then I felt a tingling sensation at the back of my neck.

"Shepard!" Garrus yelled out.

I turned around. The pool that Vasir had fallen into had gone from a few calm ripples to a seething, frothing mess of bubbles. Everyone instinctively aimed their weapons.

With a fierce cry, a blue field of energy exploded from the pool, surging upwards before briefly pausing and hovering. Before any of us could think to pull the trigger, the energy blasted away to the far end of the courtyard. The energy quickly dissipated, revealing a seriously pissed off Vasir.

That must have been how she was able to get to Mariana so quickly. She didn't teleport, as I had thought. No, she had somehow used her biotics to set a new record for sprinting. **(11)**

Then she pulled out her assault rifle.

Aw, crap.

Maybe at some point she had thought of nothing else but running. She who lives to run away, lives to serve the Shadow Broker another day. Or something like that. But clearly she'd changed her mind. Apparently, I was too damn stubborn for my own good. So now she was gonna take me out. And Liara. And my little squad too. **(12)**

Great.

* * *

By this point, the squad was well-versed in dealing with biotic adversaries. They knew that the first order of business was to take out the barriers. Concussive rounds to jar the biotic's concentration. Fighting biotic fire with biotic fire. Even bullets—either the kind enveloped by a warp mod's biotic field or the kind that came in a rapid barrage. That sort of tactic usually worked just fine.

Of course, most of the biotics we'd faced were courteous enough to either stay still or move around at a normal place. Vasir only stayed in one spot, firing a couple pot shots at us until Miranda tagged her with a biotic blast before zipping to the other end of the courtyard. "Catch me if you can," she hollered.

I quickly swung around, hoping to get her in my sights and fire my sniper rifle before the cloak wore off. Unfortunately, that didn't work out, though Legion did manage to hit her with their sniper rifle before she shot off like a rocket again to, well, somewhere. We didn't really know where she'd gone, though the random bullets ricocheting off our shields told us that she was definitely nearby.

Then the back of my neck started tingling, just before I glimpsed a flash out of the corner of my eye.

"Surprise!"

"Son of a bitch!"

"Get her!"

"Damn it, she's moving too fast!"

The next thing I knew, Grunt was stumbling back. It seemed that even someone as big and massive as he was could be pushed around by an asari charging into him at hyperspeed. Especially when that asari had been secretly targeting him in the midst of her supposedly random gunfire, reducing his shields down to a sliver. One good hit took down his shields and one carefully aimed round penetrated a weak point in his hardsuit. He wasn't dead—through my HUD, I could actually see his bio-signs spike as his regeneration kicked in—but he'd be out of the fight for now.

Vasir took advantage of our confusion to shoot a couple random shots—and several more not-so-random shots at Miranda—before jetting off again. "Is that the best you've got?" she laughed.

"I'm fine," Miranda said before I could even ask.

"Then let's talk about splitting up the battlefield," I replied.

"Because we can't afford to have the entire squad try to move around," Miranda nodded.

"Which they do every time Vasir changes location."

"Thus allowing her to temporarily take Grunt out."

"While we've barely made a dent in her barriers."

"So we need a game plan."

"How 'bout splitting the squad into teams?"

"And each team into…"

"Fire-teams."

"I was thinking sub-teams."

"No one calls them sub-teams."

"Fine. Whatever. As long as each 'fire-team' is responsible for a different area."

"Done."

The squad was very receptive to our suggestions. Probably because they were made just after Vasir had mocked us for being 'too slow.' It didn't take long before our change in tactics started to pay off. Vasir was still zipping around the battlefield like a firefly on red sand, but at least we were hitting her more often. No matter where she went, there were three or four people waiting for her. As a result, she had to superspeed around a lot more often. And her barriers were definitely starting to fluctuate, I noticed.

"Argh!"

"Why can't she just stay still?"

On the other hand, she wasn't taking things lying down. Zaeed had somehow gotten himself knocked out. **(13)** So had Samara, though that wasn't a mystery. Her shields had shorted out after several minutes of intermittent targeting by Vasir. So she decided to take cover and let her shields regenerate rather than take an unintended nap. Made sense, I thought as Vasir screeched to a halt next to one of the shallow pools in the courtyard.

Then Vasir unleashed a biotic shockwave that knocked Samara out of cover. Before she could take cover, Vasir had emptied an entire thermal clip into her midsection. "Is that the best you can do?" she taunted over the sound of gunfire.

Did I mention she kept up a steady stream of smart-mouth? I could almost admire her, if she wasn't trying to kill us all.

By the time she'd rocketed away, Samara was doubling over and coughing up blood. Naturally, she refused Garrus's offer of medi-gel. I exchanged a look with Garrus. We silently agreed to let Samara's hardsuit administer the usual micro-doses of medi-gel and see how that worked out. If things didn't improve, Garrus would give her a full pack of medi-gel. No ifs, ands or buts. For now, though, Samara was down for the count.

That was fine as far as Grunt—who had returned to the fight—was concerned. More chances for him to hit that damn asari, he said. At least he wasn't trying to charge after her. Believe me, he'd finally agreed to the plan Miranda and I had cooked up, but only after a lot of complaining. Not surprisingly, he was the loudest and most vocal whenever anyone hit Vasir. When _he _got her with a concussive round, I thought my eardrums would shatter.

As the fight continued, I noticed something going on with Liara. Her mouth kept moving and her fingers kept twitching. It was like she was trying to rehearse something. She'd make a few gestures, shake her head in frustration, then try again.

"Liara?" I asked.

"Just an idea," she said simply.

"One that can help us?"

Liara shook her head again. "Not yet. I'm trying to figure out a way to perfect it."

"No substitute for battlefield trials," I suggested.

"The battlefield is hardly the appropriate place to try untested methods," she rebutted.

I had to admit that she had a point. Prototypes should be tested in the lab first, then out in a carefully controlled environment. After that, maybe—_maybe_—we could think about trying it out in the battlefield. Of course, the universe was rarely so accommodating.

Before I could say anything, though, Vasir rocketed up—literally—to what must have been the top floor of Azure. "Back in a bit," her voice echoed down. "Have fun!"

'Have fun.' What the heck was that supposed to—

—the back of my neck suddenly tingled again. I quickly looked around. Nothing. Then I looked up. A small swarm of drones was swooping in, providing escort for another skytruck. **(14)** "Incoming!" I hollered.

The squad scrambled for cover, dragging along Zaeed—who was still out cold—and Samara—who had finally stopped bleeding. Jack took it upon herself to start waking up Zaeed by swearing at him and slapping his face. I honestly wasn't sure what she enjoyed more. Meanwhile, Garrus was administering a dose of medi-gel to Samara, who was suddenly more compliant. My guess was she was too woozy from all the blood she had lost to put up much of a fight.

Speaking of fights, we had another one on our hands. That skytruck was unloading another squad of the Shadow Broker's mercs and we couldn't do anything about it. Not until we dealt with all the drones weaving around and shooting rockets at us.

Drones… "Tali, Legion; launch your drones at the mercs," I yelled. "Everyone else, take out the swarm!"

Lifting my submachine gun, I squeezed the trigger, firing short bursts to minimize the chances of missing the highly maneuverable buggers. After downing one of them, I spared a moment to glance over at the mercs. As I had hoped, all four of them were occupied with Chikitta and whatever Legion had named their drone—assuming they had bothered naming their drone at all. The drones wouldn't last long, but they were buying us time to take out the rocket drones. Which, I suppose, was all I could ask.

As I watched, I realized that there were only one or two rocket drones left. All the others had been taken out. "Miranda, Kasumi, Garrus," I called out. "Target the mercs."

All three of them promptly swiveled on the spot and launched a trio of EMPs before returning their attention to the drones. Two of the mercs lost their shields, while the other two suffered some serious shield damage. Without waiting for my orders, Mordin absently aimed his omni-tool in the general direction of the mercs and lit one of them up. Approving grin on my face, I activated my cloak, lifted my sniper rifle… then realized that it was still running my warp ammo mod. Ideal against biotic barriers, not so much against shields. Suppressing a shrug—that would throw my aim off—I fired anyway. Didn't quite kill the merc, but it smashed through what was left of his shields and left a nice big dent in his forehead, one that Miranda punctured with one shot from her heavy pistol.

"Miss me?"

Vasir had returned from wherever she had gone off to. Barriers still relatively strong, hardsuit unscratched, assault rifle loaded with fresh thermal clips. And we still had two mercs to finish off.

"Um, Liara," I said. "Whatever you had planned, I think we should try it."

"But it's not perfected—"

"Liara," I interrupted as Vasir fired off a half dozen shots at me. "Just _do it_!"

Liara took a deep breath and nodded. Turning towards Vasir, she raised her arms, summoning up a miniature whirlwind of biotic sparks. Vasir's entire body lit up with her own biotic energies as she prepared to jet off to who-knows-where—probably in response to the concussive round Garrus shot into her midriff. As I watched, Vasir's body grew brighter and brighter and…

…

…came to a complete and utter halt.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Vasir was still doing a very good imitation of a statue. A statue covered in white energy, stuck in the middle of a hemispherical white mass effect field. "What the heck just happened?"

"Oh good. It worked."

"Liara?" I prompted.

"I put Vasir into stasis."

"Oh."

"Well, technically a stasis bubble. It was inspired by the safeguard that trapped me on Therum, where you found me, Shep—"

"All right, all right," I hastily butted in before Liara could give us a dissertation. "All that matters is that we can shoot her while she's all frozen."

"Well, actually…"

Those words were interrupted by a bloodthirsty Grunt, who promptly emptied a thermal clip into Vasir. It didn't really seem to do anything. In fact… I recalibrated my sensors and did a quick scan… I couldn't get _any _reading on Vasir at all!

"…the stasis field also prevents the subject from being harmed in any way," Liara finished.

"Just like Therum," I groaned.

"Just like Therum," she confirmed.

"Well that's kinda stupid!" Jack burst out. "What the fuck's the point of freezing her if we can't shoot her?"

"It'll give us a chance to set up properly," I replied. "Miranda, Garrus, Grunt, Samara, Thane, Jack, Zaeed, Liara; get ready to hit her once the stasis field collapses. Everyone else—"

I ducked as a couple shots bounced off my shields. "—everyone else take out the last few mercs."

Kasumi, Legion, Jacob, Mordin and Tali promptly dealt with the two surviving mercs while the rest of us moved to a spot with a better line-of-sight. A slight flicker was the only warning we got before the stasis bubble collapsed. "Now!" I shouted.

Vasir stumbled and dropped to the ground. Partly in shock over having been frozen, partly from receiving a sustained barrage of biotics and concussive rounds. All hitting the exact same spot in her barriers. It was my sniper shot that dropped her barriers, I was proud to say. Though that was mostly because I shot last. Had to refocus my aim after giving the order to shoot, you see.

Mordin promptly sent a fireball her way. The plasma splashed over her hardsuit as two combat drones flickered to life—courtesy of Tali and Legion. The two drones promptly began assaulting her with foul, chirpy binary language—or whatever passed for speech amongst those guys—and high-voltage electrical shocks. Vasir promptly used her assault rifle and a searing biotic shockwave to rip them apart. We took advantage of her distraction to score a couple more shots.

Glaring at us, she activated a comm on her hardsuit. "Are you here yet?" we could hear her snap. Then came a pause. "Well what're you waiting for? Get in here and kill Shepard, damn it!"

With that, she flew up, up and away. Just in time for another two skytrucks to start their final approach.

"Everyone know what to do?" I asked.

"Yep."

"You bet."

"Sure thing."

A second before they touched down, the mercs on both skytrucks got hit by two EMPs each. A second later, the mercs who looked like they were in charge lost their heads to a couple well-aimed shots from sniper rifles. A second after that, the suddenly leaderless mercs found themselves floating in mid-air.

And then they got set on fire.

A string of curses rang out, each more inventive and descriptive than the last. I don't think Vasir expected us to eliminate her backup so quickly. Just a hunch, you see. The curses lasted a good minute before abruptly stopping.

I looked around. "What just happened?"

"Maybe Vasir ran out of swear words?" Garrus said wryly.

"And maybe she'll stop shooting if we ask her nicely," I replied.

"We're wasting time," Liara burst out. "Vasir's probably getting away."

"On it," I assured her. "EDI, can you tap into Azure's surveillance systems?"

"_Standby," _EDI said. _"Access granted. Vasir is heading for the elevator. An analysis of the Azure Hotel blueprints indicates that she is three floors from the rooftop parkade, where several skycars are currently parked. It is likely that she plans to use one of them to affect a getaway."_

"Tap into the elevators," I ordered. "Make sure it takes a while for the elevator to arrive and even longer for Vasir to get to the rooftop. You need to buy us enough time to beat her to the roof."

"_Understood, Shepard."_

I turned to the squad. "Let's go."

I don't know why Vasir chose to run away (again) after making such an effort to fight. Maybe she changed her mind after realizing that we were tougher than we look. Maybe she got an order from the Shadow Broker to break off and skedaddle with the data. Maybe she just wanted a change of scenery.

Whatever the reason, I'm pretty sure she wasn't happy to see us when the elevator doors opened. And she certainly wasn't going to lie down and call it a day.

"Whoa!"

"Watch out!"

Nope, she charged out of the elevator car, guns blazing. Knocked more than one of us flat on our ass.

"Gah!"

Thankfully, Liara was able to put her in stasis again before things got ugly.

"Everyone okay?" I asked.

The squad—and Liara—said they were fine. Most of them, I believed.

"Ow! Shep!"

Ignoring Kasumi's protests, I finished administering a dose of medi-gel—Vasir had managed to penetrate her shields. One millimetre to the left and she would've severed Kasumi's carotid artery—and pulled her to the back of the squad. Just in time, as Liara's stasis field was about to shut down.

Now that we had had a chance to get our bearings again and line up our shots, things went better. A full assault of biotic force and hot, hot plasma cracked open one of her armour plates. Before Vasir could make a move, Thane knocked her off her feet with his biotics. That gave us a few more free shots. Okay, maybe several more free shots. Vasir managed to get to her feet, only for Samara to smash her into the wall with the biotic equivalent of a battering ram. Not to be left out of all the fun, Grunt charged forward and trampled over her. That much weight—and blunt force trauma—was the final blow.

"Damn it!" Vasir cursed, collapsing to the ground. She tried to get up, muscles straining, before they gave out. "Damn it!"

Liara wordlessly walked over, reached down and grabbed an OSD from Vasir's pocket, batting aside Vasir's feeble attempts to stop her. "Sekat's personal database," she offered when we looked at her. "Yes, yes it's all here. This has what we need to find the Shadow Broker."

"You're dead," Vasir called out as Liara walked away. "The Shadow Broker has been in power for decades. He's stronger than anything you've ever faced!"

"Is that why you sold out the Council to work for him?" I asked.

Vasir's eyes blazed in fury. "You think I betrayed the Council? Like Saren? Go to hell!"

"Then why?" I challenged. "Why all this?"

"The Broker's given me _damn_ good intel over the years," Vasir rasped. "Intel that _saved_ lives and kept the Citadel _safe_! So if the Broker needs a few people to disappear, I'll pay that price without hesitation!"

"A few people?" I snorted. "Is that what you call blowing up a building full of innocent people?"

"Colla... collateral damage," Vasir coughed. "All in a day's work for a Spectre. We get our hands dirty so the Council doesn't have to. Oh, the councillors might complain about our methods to soothe their consciences, but they _never_ look too closely."

She had a point. TPTB did love to put their heads in the sand. Not that that justified anything that Vasir had done.

Speaking of which, she was still talking. "Besides, you're with Cerberus. You have any idea what your terrorist friends have done?"

"Your intel's obsolete," I told her. "Cerberus and I parted ways a while ago. And I know who they are. What they've done. From experimenting on colonies to kidnapping kids. That's why I never bent over backwards for them like you did for the Shadow Broker. I accepted Cerberus intel, but I didn't blindly accept missions in return like you did. I used Cerberus resources, but I never killed innocent people like you did. I worked with Cerberus out of necessity, but I never took the easy way out like you did.

"'Cause that's exactly what you did. You took the easy way out. You sold your soul. And you failed. I want that to be the last thing you remember. You. failed."

"You... d-don't you... dare judge me!" Vasir choked. "Don't you..."

She slumped over, her eyes growing dull and lifeless. We left her body behind.

* * *

When we caught up with Liara, she was playing an audio recording on her omni-tool. _"Eliminate T'Soni and retrieve the data," _a deep, rumbling voice said. _"Civilian casualties not a concern."_

That would explain the Dracon Trade Centre. And Azure. As for the whole running away part… maybe Vasir thought that, as long as she had the data, one out of two was good enough. I dunno. It wasn't as if we could ask her.

"Vasir's dead," I told Liara.

"I'm putting the data through to the Normandy's computers," she replied. "We can be at the Shadow Broker's base in a few hours."

Liara headed quickly towards the elevator. "He'll know about Vasir before long. If he decides to kill Feron..."

"We'll get Feron out of there alive, Liara," I assured her. "I promise." **(15)**

"I know," Liara said bitterly. "You're here to help. Just like always."

"And that's a bad thing?" I asked.

Liara turned to face me. "When we first met on Therum, you saved me from the geth. You fought a krogan battlemaster while I cowered in fear."

"You did more than cower," I reminded her. "As I recall, you put up quite a fight yourself."

"But I wouldn't have succeeded without you," Liara said. "The only reason I got out of those ruins alive is because you came after me. Now you're doing it again. And I'm _still_ leaning on you for help."

"That's what friends _do_, Liara," I pointed out. "They _help_."

Ignoring everything I had said, Liara tried to make another go for the elevator. "I can get us there, based on Sekat's data. The Normandy's stealth drive will keep them from detecting us. The Shadow Broker's agents are still shooting their way through Illium. With luck, they won't notice we've left until it's too late."

"That's a little cold," I frowned. "They killed innocent people."

"You know what I mean," Liara said.

"Do I?" I challenged her. "When I hit the ground at the trade centre, you went after Vasir without looking back once."

"A little fall wasn't going to kill you," Liara replied. "I had to stay on Vasir. I had to stay rational. Make the call. Like I did with Sekat."

She walked over to the rooftop ledge and gazed out at the cityscape, glowing with neon brilliance. I joined her, leaning on one elbow to look her in the eye. "That's Vasir's fault, not yours."

"Sekat had no idea what the stakes were," Liara said sadly. "I put him in harm's way to get the data I needed. I got him killed. And I'd do it again."

She pushed herself off from the ledge. "But from here on, things will be simple. Get in, get Feron, get out."

We walked back towards the elevator. "And kill anyone who tries to stop us," she added.

"That's it?" Garrus asked, speaking for the first time.

"That's it," Liara confirmed.

"Liara!" Tali gasped.

"Will you just stop for a second?" I burst out. Lunging forward, I grabbed her arm and yanked her to a halt. "We'll be jumping several light years to get to the Shadow Broker. There's time to talk."

"About what?"

"How about you?" I said. "You haven't been the same since I came back, Liara."

"What do you want me to say, Shepard?" Liara asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. "That I mourned you? That I feel guilty because Feron got captured?

"I made mistakes, Shepard. I lost people. I helped get you back and I want—I _need _to do the same for Feron! I'll sit and talk once he's safe. Until then, enjoying the scenery is an insult to the man who saved both of us."

"This isn't about enjoying the scenery and you know that," I said softly. "This is about your guilt."

"My what?"

"Guilt. Guilt over 'letting' me die on the original Normandy when you know there was nothing you could have done. Guilt over the fact that Feron had to sacrifice himself so you could retrieve my body. Guilt that you had to hand me over to Cerberus to bring me back.

"That's why you're so angry, isn't it? Why you're so cold and ruthless now? Why you're so obsessed with getting revenge against the Shadow Broker?"

"So?"

"So if you're too caught up in your guilt, you're going to make mistakes. If you keep drowning in guilt instead of coming to terms with it, you'll never move on. You'll just keep spiraling downwards until there's nothing left. And then it won't matter who you've saved, because you'll have lost yourself."

Liara's face bore this painfully exquisite mixture of emotions. Anger. Fear. Hope. Relief. Pain. Looked like I was onto something.

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right. "Just... think about it, okay?" I asked.

"Of course, Shepard," Liara replied. She took a deep breath. "Now then, we'd better hurry."

"Okay," I nodded. "Let's go."

We shuffled into the elevator and headed back down. Surprisingly enough, there was no music chiming overhead. I was relieved, to be honest. We had enough on our mind as it was.

Some more than others.

* * *

_(1): Singularities of this nature are caused by a mass effect field that is powerful enough to warp the space-time continuum, creating a localized gravity well that can draw unprotected enemies into its grip. The gravitational forces of the singularity can also strain the integrity of any shields, armour or biotic barriers over time. At the risk of coming across as immodest, I must say that generating the necessary concentration of dark energy to create singularities is a difficult skill to master._

_(2)__: 'Terra firma,' a phrase from the ancient human language known as Latin for 'solid earth.' In this case, Shepard means that one of the Shadow Broker mercs managed to keep his feet on the terrace, as any 'solid earth' was several stories below._

_(3): That would be the Widow Anti-Material Rifle. Legion was the only other member of Shepard's squad strong enough to wield it without suffering any injuries from the recoil. Well, except for Grunt, who wouldn't be interested anyway. _

_(4): One sapient's 'bad habits' was clearly another sapient's sound tactical doctrine. _

_(5): To be fair, LOKI mechs were an economical form of security that were effective against standard threats. Spectres and the Shadow Broker's mercenaries, unfortunately, were anything but standard. _

_(6): For humans, 'azure' is simply a hue of blue. Curiously enough, humans also have a slang definition for the colour pink. I am given to understand that it covers a similar region of the human body. _

_(7): If I had known it was that easy to fluster Shepard, I would have done it earlier. _

_(8): I believe Shepard was both on and off the mark. Miranda was irritated by Shepard's remarks, and all the allusions and flirting they implied. Having said that, she also knew that Shepard wasn't trying to fool around with me, simply because she trusted him, an act that is staggering in and of itself._

_(9): Shepard's words, while harsh, were understandable and completely deserved._

(10): By which he meant that he would use his usual tactical brilliance to improvise a solution.

_(11): It is not clear how Vasir was able to perform such a feat. She may have used her biotic abilities to create a mass-free corridor, similar to a mass relay. Alternatively, she may have manipulated the gravitational fields around her to lower her mass. Whatever the nature, it was clear that she had a biotically-enhanced degree of mobility unmatched by any adversary Shepard had faced thus far._

_(12): An allusion to a line uttered by the 'Wicked Witch of the West', a villain from the 1939 human movie 'The Wizard of Oz.' This movie, in turn, was based on the 1900 book of the same name by L. Frank Baum._

_(13): While Shepard and Miranda were formulating their plan, they—and the rest of the squad—had succeeded in dealing a little more damage to Vasir's barriers. Unfortunately, Zaeed had taken several hits while pulling Jack out of the line of fire. In his attempt to avoid any further injuries, he accidentally collided with a lamppost and knocked himself out. _

_(14): In Alliance terminology, a group of friendly drones were termed a 'flock,' while enemy drones were called a 'swarm.'_

_(15): Readers may be aware that Shepard rarely made promises. At least, he rarely made them out loud._


	4. For Fools Rush In

**Chapter 4: For Fools Rush In... **

We made it back to the shuttle and back to the Normandy without any other incidents. Which, for me, is saying something.

Man, do I lead a sad life or what?

"Why don't I find you a place to sleep?" I asked after we landed.

"Thank you Shepard, but that isn't necessary," Liara declined. "Like I said, it won't take us long to get to the Shadow Broker's base, and I have too much on my mind to sleep anyway."

I should explain that.

Sekat's data indicated that the Shadow Broker's main base of operations was a ship that hid amidst the atmosphere of Hagalaz, a planet located in one of the systems of the Hourglass Nebula. "Get something to eat, at least," I pleaded.

"In time," she said, waving me off. "First, I need to visit your tech lab. And your armoury."

"'Tech lab'," I echoed. "What for?"

"I want to see if Dr. Solus has any biotic amp schematics that I haven't come across," Liara explained. "Anything better than what I have, that is."

"And you want to see if the armoury has any better weapons," I guessed.

"I know it does," she replied. "I saw the Locusts you were carrying."

That's right: back on Illium, she was packing a Tempest. A very good weapon in general. Heck, I would've used it if I hadn't picked up the Locust—which had better long-range accuracy and virtually no recoil—first. "And then you'll get something to eat," I pressed.

"Of course," Liara said. "I can't kill the Shadow Broker on an empty stomach."

Of course.

Most of the squad had left by then, but Miranda and Samara were still hanging around. I tilted my head towards Liara, who had just left the cargo bay. "Thoughts?"

Miranda frowned. "I sensed a certain desire for vengeance when she... retrieved your body. It's a bit alarming how quickly that desire has grown." **(1) **

"She does have a certain intensity about her," Samara agreed. "A need for vengeance, yes, but also atonement. In many ways, she reminds me of myself when I first began my training to become a justicar."

"Is that a compliment?" I asked.

"An observation," Samara replied. "And, perhaps, a cautionary note. The path of a justicar is a noble road, but also a lonely one. Liara is walking a similar path, but without the benefit or comfort of the Code."

So even our resident justicar was concerned about Liara's present state of mind.

Wonderful.

* * *

Liara was right. Once we exited the Hourglass Nebula mass relay, it only took seven or eight hours to reach the Sowilo system, and another twenty minutes to reach Hagalaz. There wasn't much point in having a formal briefing before our departure, so we just held an impromptu one in the shuttle instead. "We all know why we're here," I started once we left the shuttle bay. "Unfortunately, there's a lot we don't know. We don't know the layout of the place. We don't know what kind of defences the Shadow Broker has. We don't know how many guards he has."

"But given that this is his primary base of operations, from which he commands his entire network of spies and operatives, it's safe to say there will be a lot of guards," Miranda said.

"Don't forget all the mercs we faced on Illium," Garrus added. "At least that gives us some idea of what we might be up against."

"Agreed," I nodded. "We won't be going in completely blind. Plus, Liara and EDI have managed to dig up some intel on Hagalaz. Liara?"

"Hagalaz: a second-tier garden world that had a brief surge of mining activity in the early to mid 2000s."

"Only a brief surge?" Tali asked. "What happened?"

"It is known for the intense heat on one side of the planet and extreme cold on the other. As a result, the oceans boil during the day, then snap-freeze ten minutes after sundown. Needless to say, mining activity petered out as other planets with more accessible resources—and less hostile environments—were discovered."

"The Shadow Broker lives in this?" Jacob marveled.

"He does," Liara confirmed. "The temperature differential creates a constant lightning storm where the hot and cold air collide. That's where the ship is located, following the sunset. It's completely undetectable in the midst of the storm, unless you know where to look."

"Now _that's _a cool security system," Kasumi declared.

"Glad you approve," I said wryly.

"How do you propose to get inside?" Thane asked. "Can we gain access via the shuttle bay?"

Liara shook her head. "No, the shuttle bay is locked down via a stand-alone terminal that's isolated from the rest of the mainframe or the extranet. We'll need to land on the ship and hunt for an access hatch."

"So I hope the mag-locks on your boots still work," I added, "'cause we're going EVA." **(2)**

"But we'll have to hurry," Liara warned. "The lightning storms would make it unwise to stay outside for long."

"No sightseeing. Got it," Kasumi quipped.

At that point, the shuttle touched down. I got up and opened the hatch, motioning for the squad to get out. Once the last squadmate disembarked, the hatch closed and the shuttle lifted off, returning to the Normandy.

Liara was already scanning our surroundings. "It's hard to pinpoint in all this lightning, but I'm picking up signals from a communications array near the back of the ship," she reported.

That might be a good place to start, I thought. Given all the lightning and strong winds blowing about, there was bound to be an access hatch near the comm array. Besides, it would be easy to orient ourselves in the right direction: the majority of the ship—or base or whatever—was relatively flat. The aft section was configured in a roughly concave shape, flaring above and below the rest of the ship. So all we had to do was move towards the ersatz cliff face looming over us and we'd be more or less in the right area.

"I don't suppose there's another access hatch around here somewhere?" I asked hopefully.

"Already checked," Zaeed butted in. "Nothin' round here but maintenance equipment and other crap. Best bet to get inside is to head aft."

"Aft it is," I decided. "Let's go. And keep your eyes peeled: someone could detect us at any time."

I soon discovered that the first obstacle we faced wasn't a pack of mercs, but the unevenness of the 'terrain.' While there were areas built into the ship's hull for people to travel, they weren't exactly set up in nice, straight lines. I led the squad aft for a bit before reaching a large, ersatz cliff that I couldn't climb over. Looking around, I had a choice of heading to port—where a set of large panels, crackling with energy, were wobbling perilously—or starboard, where a declining slope led towards a flat section of the hull that led aft. Not surprisingly, I chose the latter.

We had to clamber over a curved hull plate, but otherwise it was smooth sailing. Until we ran into the drones.

"Combat drones," I warned as they floated towards us.

"No, they're maintenance drones," Liara corrected me.

"Then why are they attacking us?" I asked, after receiving a very unpleasant shock.

"They must think we're debris from the storm!" Liara hypothesized.

"And their idea of clearing debris was to zap it to death?"

"It would appear so."

"Swell."

The only consolation was that the small swarm of drones, and the one we bumped into a minute later, didn't put up much of a fight. We didn't even have to waste that many bullets. Plus, I managed to salvage a few conductor components after the last drone went kaput.

After that little bit of looting, we headed up a ramp to a catwalk. The catwalk had railings on either side with at half-walls protruding out at regular intervals. What caught my eye were the two large structures at the end of the catwalk, one on either side. As we watched, a lightning bolt struck the ship. Specifically, it struck the structures, which suddenly started crackling with energy. I belatedly realized that they were capacitors of some sort, designed to absorb any stray lightning that hit the ship.

"Careful," Liara warned. "Those capacitors might be delicate. The slightest impact could discharge whatever energy they absorbed."

Something else caught my eye. Or, to be more precise, someone. "I'm more worried about those mercs than the capacitors, to be honest."

We found whatever cover we could find and opened fire. The Shadow Broker's mercs did the same. Something was bugging me, though. I couldn't put my finger on it until one of the mercs ducked in time to avoid a burst of gunfire from Thane: the mercs were taking cover behind the capacitors. Just how delicate were they?

Following a hunch, I pulled out my submachine gun and carefully fired off a single shot at the left capacitor. Sure enough, it discharged all the energy they had stored with a loud snapping noise; unleashing it on anyone unfortunate enough to be close enough. That would be the mercs, whose shields took a serious pounding. Another shot caused the right capacitor to unleash all its energy. A single EMP from Miranda and Liara's singularity quickly rendered the lot of them helpless. Then it was a simple matter for Mordin and I to light them up.

Once the burning cinders of the mercs had been carried away by the surrounding winds, we moved forward. And by forward I mean to the end of the catwalk and down a ramp to our left.

"Excuse me."

LOKI mechs. Eight or nine of them. "Zaeed, Mordin; on my mark. Tali and Legion; follow up."

I counted down from three before launching another ball of plasma. Zaeed tossed an inferno grenade a split second later, followed by Mordin and his own fireball. Our shots hit the mechs in the middle of the pack, clearing the way for them to get hacked. Then we just sat back and watched the mechs tear each other apart. Though, just for fun, we might have fired a judicious shot or two.

After the last mech was blown to smithereens, I exchanged looks with Miranda. "Second group of bad guys in two minutes."

"Four if you count the swarms of maintenance drones."

"So either the Shadow Broker has a lot of security patrolling the hull..."

"...or he found out about the uninvited guests scurrying around and is trying to do something about it."

"Until then, all we can do is keep going..."

"...see how much opposition we face..."

"...and adapt accordingly."

Liara looked at Garrus. "Do they know that we're right here, watching them do that?"

Garrus shrugged. "They do that all the time."

"Really? Fascinating."

Wonder what she meant by that.

* * *

The next group of mercs bumped into us a minute later. It was like these guys were on a schedule or something. Much to my surprise—and delight—there was another pair of capacitors, sizzling with energy and waiting to be released. Yet another sign that the universe has a love-hate relationship with me. Or maybe that's hate-love.

I motioned for the squad to stop, lifted my submachine gun—why waste a sniper round and the thermal clip it would use up when I could use the same thermal clip multiple times with my submachine gun instead?—and fired a shot. The sudden snap, flash of light, discharge of energy and chorus of screams told me my little tactic worked.

"One of them is using a combat drone," Liara warned.

"Legion," I grinned, "show Liara what we think of that."

Legion promptly hacked the drone, who abruptly turned around and charged the closest merc. Meanwhile, Garrus dropped an EMP on a couple mercs who were late to the party. One of the mercs promptly took several concussive rounds to the face and dropped like a rock. The other one was yanked off his feet by Jacob's biotics. He went up, up, up...

...and then a gust of wind caught him and yanked him away. We watched him grow smaller and smaller, before an errant lightning strike hit him.

"Okay, we've gotta remember that for the next time," I told the squad. "Why waste ammo when—ooh! Capacitor's stored another lightning strike." I lifted my submachine gun and fired another shot.

"Argh!"

"Not again!"

Hee, hee.

Samara took out the last merc. I motioned for Team Two to stay put while Team One check things out. **(3)** We looked around, but there weren't any other mercs in the area. There wasn't anywhere else to go either.

"Over here!"

"Control switch for the lightning rod," Miranda explained when we joined her, pointing to a rather large and pointy apparatus towering above. I assumed that that was the lightning rod.

"Great," I enthused. Then I paused, before admitting "I don't get it."

She rolled her eyeballs before reaching down and pulling up a bulky, cylindrical control. With a hiss and a whirr that was somehow audible over the cacophony around us, the lightning rod retracted, clearing a path for us.

"Sweet!" I approved, leaning around Grunt and motioning for Team Two to join us.

"Miranda figure it out?" Tali asked.

"Hey!" Garrus protested, coming to my defence. "It might've been Shepard."

"It was Miranda who figured it out," I admitted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. That means a lot."

Tali turned to Garrus and wordlessly held up a hand. Shaking his head, Garrus dug out a credit chit—ten credit denomination, at least—and dropped it in her palm.

"That... not so much," I sighed. Garrus might've said something, if it wasn't for the mercs who charged in. I wasn't sure whether to thank them or not. So I ducked, waited for the mercs to get closer, and shot up a capacitor instead. Miranda and Kasumi zapped a couple shields. The mercs were smart enough to separate so some of them could escape Liara's singularity. Unfortunately, Samara was waiting for them. She pulled them off their feet and let the winds do the rest.

I was about to send a fireball at the mercs caught in Liara's singularity when a bright light caught my eye. Ducking just in time, I watched as a fireball wooshed by overhead. Popping back up, I glared at the merc who'd launched said ball of plasma. "Hey!" I yelled. "That's _my _shtick!"

That merc couldn't respond. Partly because Garrus had damaged another capacitor before frying the remnants of his shields. Partly because Mordin had set him on fire. "Apologies, Shepard," he belatedly said. "Was not aware you filed patent."

"I didn't and it's okay," I replied. "I'll give you a pass."

"Very generous."

"I thought so." **(4)**

Any hopes of continuing this scintillating conversation were interrupted by an alert on my HUD. I'd set my sensors to constantly scan for anything in my immediate vicinity that had shields, biotic barriers or even an unusually high amount of armour. They were detecting someone closing in who enjoyed the protection of barriers. It didn't take long to see the culprit: asari, armed with a shotgun. No doubt hoping to sneak in and unleash a world of hurt.

Before I could do anything, everything exploded in a blinding blaze of light and deafening roar of sound. Another flashbang, courtesy of one of the mercs. I blindly fired a couple shots back, hoping that a) I hit the capacitor and b) the capacitor had a fresh dose of electricity ready to unleash on the mercs.

For once, the universe smiled on me. I heard the loud snap that I had already come to associate with the capacitor taking a hit, along with several cries of dismay that also followed such an incident. My eyes cleared up quickly—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say my ocular implants cleared quickly. Either way, I saw two mercs stumbling around; one human, one asari. Activating my cloak, I took out the human merc. A flash exploded around the asari as her barriers were abruptly ripped to shreds, courtesy of Miranda. Garrus and Grunt were quick to fire several shots at her before blowing her head with twin concussive rounds.

I checked my HUD, but it didn't look like there were any more bad guys in the vicinity. "Take a minute to catch your breath and scrounge for thermal clips," I ordered.

"Shepard will use that time to scrounge for salvage, credits or other valuables," Garrus quickly added.

"Hey!"

Insults and slander to my character notwithstanding, it didn't take long before we were on the move again. And, sure enough, it didn't take long before we ran into more company. This time, it was a baker's dozen worth of LOKI mechs. Miranda and I exchanged knowing glances before letting off a biotic blast and a plasma burst at two of the rear mechs, respectively. Tali and Legion hacked the mechs, co-opting them into shooting their comrades in the back and forcing them to split their fire. With a complete and utter lack of shame, we took advantage of this distraction to pound them with gunfire. Jack finished off one of the mechs with her shotgun before releasing a biotic shockwave. It hit the lead mechs, sending them flying back into their buddies and knocking them all over. Garrus and Kasumi dropped a pair of EMPs on them, blowing up several of the mechs and severely damaging the rest. Liara grabbed the survivors in a singularity, which Thane kindly detonated with his biotics.

I was about to head out when my sensors detected something. Quickly veering to my left, I started struggling with some conductor components. **(5)**

"Some things never changed," Liara laughed.

"But it's the kind of thing you have to see to believe," Jacob chuckled.

"Done," I interrupted, hoping to stop all the fun they were having at my expense.

"Twelve seconds. Very impressive. Sign of practise," Mordin stated.

So much for that idea. "Are you done now?" I asked.

The squad looked at each other. "For now," Miranda replied.

"Since you asked," Kasumi chimed in.

Suppressing a sigh, I let the squad enjoy themselves. The things I do...

* * *

"Okay," Liara said shakily. "Looking down was clearly a mistake."

Our progress had taken us down the side of the ship. Literally—if it wasn't for the mag-locks on our boots, we would have fallen straight off. Below us, all we saw were lots of clouds and the occasional lightning bolt, masking any sign of what might lie below.

"Just breathe," I suggested over the howling winds. "Slowly," I added a second later.

Liara was unable to take my advice until we reached a more-or-less horizontal catwalk. I paused, ostensibly to recalibrate the sensors to track that comm signal Liara had picked up when we first arrived. Once Liara's breathing had slowed, we continued.

"Ten credits say we're gonna bump into mercs next," Kasumi piped up as we walked along the catwalk.

"Ten says it'll be mechs," Zaeed said.

"You're both wrong," I told them, squinting ahead. "It's both."

"Nuts."

"Damn."

"Woohoo!"

That last one was Grunt.

About six or seven mercs popped out of a large recess in the ship, followed by three LOKI mechs. I quickly issued my orders amidst all the ensuing gunfire. Miranda, Garrus, Kasumi and Tali zapped all of the mercs' shields while Jack, Jacob, Samara and Thane rushed into the recess. Before they could do anything, Jack and Jacob had lifted the mercs up into the air. Samara and Thane patiently waited until they were high enough before sending them flying outward with their own biotics. Any merc that didn't get caught by the prevailing currents and swept away wound up plunging into the crowds once the biotic field they were caught in wore off.

Meanwhile, Mordin, Zaeed and I had hit the mechs with hot, hot plasma. Legion quickly hacked one of them. As the hacked mech turned on one of its former compatriots, the other one was knocked off its feet by Grunt's concussive round, hit the rail and toppled over.

I would've been content to wait for the mechs to duke it out, then finish off the survivor. Liara wasn't so patient. She blew the hacked mech apart with a biotic blast, then emptied the rest of her heavy pistol's clip into the last mech.

After a quick search, we soon found out that the only way to our destination was up a ramp and through what appeared to be a monitoring station for power distribution or engine function. Whatever its purpose, it meant that we could take shelter inside the ship for a few minutes.

Several members of the squad cleared their ears once the doors closed. I couldn't blame them—the winds _were _kinda loud.

"This ship is incredible," Liara marveled, temporarily putting aside her need for vengeance. "It must have taken decades to build in secret."

"That is no small feat," Tali agreed. "Especially since it doesn't appear as if this ship was designed for spaceflight. I would say that it was either built somewhere on Hagalaz or constructed in space and slowly lowered into the atmosphere."

"I find it impressive that it can fly constantly in the midst of all these storms," Miranda said. "Navigating through the winds and cloud and lightning must be brutal. If the ship's engines stop even for a moment..."

"At least the Shadow Broker would go down with us," Liara offered. Her smile was just a tad vicious, I thought.

Jacob frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder what happened to the contractors."

"I think we can guess," I snorted.

Tali quickly took the lead as we walked through the room. Whoever built it obviously didn't care about interior decoration. Everything was gunmetal grey. The support columns. The catwalk. The only things that _weren't _grey were the light panels interspersed throughout the room and the lightning, which was crackling across a deranged giant version of an organ.

I quickly moved ahead, spotting something that looked a little more interesting. Sure enough, some lazy merc had left some palladium and a couple power cells lying around. It never ceased to amaze me how people would just leave things lying around for anyone to find. **(6) **

We started towards the exit once I'd tucked the latest loot away. It was a good thing I did a headcount though, because we were one person short. Or, to be more precise, one quarian short. "Tali!"

"Look at these motion-dampeners!" Tali cried out excitedly. "I bet you can't even hear the storm from inside the ship. Even in here, the sounds are muffled!"

"That's swell, kid," Zaeed rasped. "Now if you're done ooh-ing and aah-ing, we got a drell to rescue and a Shadow Broker to whack."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tali grumbled.

Tali might have gotten a bit distracted, but she had a point. The moaning of the winds grew a lot louder once we got back outside. Ignoring the antennae from some piece of equipment, and how wildly they were swaying, we went along a catwalk. The discovery of a med-station and the medi-gel inside provided a nice distraction. For me, anyway.

Then we went up a ramp, up another ramp and up the side of the ship itself. Judging by the steady rate of her breathing, Liara didn't look back down. As we climbed, a lightning bolt struck down, hitting another capacitor. The light from the stored electricity revealed some very interesting things. "Mercs," I warned. "Let's see if we can sneak around them and get the drop on—"

"Watch out!"

So much for that. ""Take cover!"

Miranda immediately fried one of the mercs's shields. I would've followed up with a strike of my own, but I was busy swapping out the disruptor mod on my sniper rifle with my warp mod. So Samara and Grunt took him out with a biotic hit, a concussive round and a couple bullets. While Garrus and Mordin dealt with another merc, I was sweeping the battlefield for—yes! This pack of mercs was, in fact, led by an asari. Activating my cloak, I aimed my sniper rifle and prepared to take her out.

Funny thing: she vaulted over a rail just as I squeezed the trigger. Instead of landing a headshot, I wound up shooting her in... well... in the crotch. Oops. Her barriers took the brunt of the damage though, and she wasn't encumbered by a certain anatomical part, so she managed to duck back down. Before she could thank her lucky stars for such a clean getaway, Zaeed lobbed an inferno grenade right on top of her. While she was flailing away and trying to bat out the flames, Legion fired a shot. _Their _headshot landed on target.

Meanwhile, Tali and Kasumi had stripped four mercs of their shields. They quickly found themselves floating above the hull of the ship, thanks to Jack. Thane and Liara blew up the biotic field, taking out all four mercs. Nice feat of synchronized biotics, I thought.

"Is that all?" Grunt asked, sounding morose.

A rocket whistled by overhead.

"Negative," Legion replied.

"No," Kasumi said in mock surprise. "Really? What was your first guess?"

"High-yield mass accelerator round fired our way at extreme velocity."

"Sarcasm just flies right by you, doesn't it?"

"Enough talk," Grunt barked. "Time to fight!"

We were already doing that, actually. The merc who tried to blow us up had just lost his shields, thanks to another one of Miranda's EMPs. Before he could do anything, I lit him up. His buddies—who had also lost their shields—hastily stepped away, not wanting to get burned to a crisp. Unfortunately, they weren't paying attention to their surroundings. Otherwise, they might have realized that they had just moved close to a capacitor—one that I promptly discharged. Screaming, they stumbled away, taking a couple hits here and there as they tried to recover from the electrical shock. In their daze, they retreated towards another capacitor, which I also discharged.

Another pair of mercs watched as their compatriots collapsed, twitching and jerking madly. They looked at each other, nodded and promptly found cover. I decided to mix things up a little: "Zaeed, Jack, Grunt; why don't you go over and pay those guys a visit? We'll stay here and keep their heads down."

Win-win situation as far as I was concerned. I got to stay back and fire pot-shots at long-range like the sensible soldier I used to be while the more combat-loving members got to indulge their inner bloodlust and the mercs… well, the mercs got a nasty surprise. **(7)**

We bumped into another half-dozen mechs. Nothing special, though the prospect of trying to fight on the side of a ship—which meant shooting and running at a 90-degree angle to gravity—was a little disconcerting. Almost reminded me of zero-gee combat training.

The next group of adversaries were a bit more challenging, in part because we were trying to climb up the side of the ship and get back to something a bit more horizontal. You would think that that would give the mercs a decisive tactical advantage. I certainly thought so. Turns out that even the best of tactical situations can be turned on its head if you get carried away.

Case in point: the asari who was first into the fight. First to fire her shotgun. First to get her barriers torn apart and her blue ass set on fire.

"Team One's gonna move up," I said once the asari collapsed. "Team Two, cover us."

I led Team One up, weaving in and out of the many obstructions scattered around the hull. For a ship designed to operate in an atmosphere, it sure wasn't very aerodynamic. **(8)** Three mercs popped up, unable to resist such a tempting target. They lost their shields almost immediately, courtesy of Garrus and Tali. Jacob hauled them up into the air with his biotics. As I recall, Mordin burned one of them to a crisp, one of them fell victim to mass gunfire and the other got pulled away by the winds and vaporized by a lightning bolt.

Finding cover behind some kind of exhaust vent, I quickly poked my head out and scanned the area with my ersatz eyeballs. Recon done, I ducked back down before I could intercept a rocket with my face. I was in no hurry to compare scars with Garrus, after all. I opened the squad comm channel and reported my findings. "Team Two, come on up. Don't worry about the mercs with the rocket launchers and the itchy trigger fingers."

Garrus obliged, leading Team Two to join us. Miranda and Kasumi fired off a pair of EMPs, timing things so they landed just as the mercs were lifting their rocket launchers. Samara had them floating in the air before they could even think to duck. Grunt hit one of them with a concussive round, unfortunately—I say unfortunately because he spent the next five minutes talking about how far the merc went. Thane and Legion took out the remaining mercs with their sniper rifles.

Meanwhile, I was busy scouting around using my cloak. Damn thing still shut down after six seconds or so, but that was enough time for me to find a control switch. The one that would lower a couple solar panels and clear a path for us to continue.

We couldn't all go around shooting mercs, after all.

* * *

The next pair of mercs to cross our paths went down without much of a fight. At first, I thought it was just yet another sign that practice made perfect. Then I noted something. "Hold on, everyone," I cautioned. "Maybe it's just me, but—"

"—we're picking up a sensor echo," Miranda interrupted. "And the signal's—"

"—too irregular to be background static," I agreed.

"Besides, it seems to be originating—"

"—right over there where the mercs fell. Wait a sec. That's—"

"—an open comm frequency. Those mercs were talking to someone else—"

"—who now know where we are." Damn it.

Miranda quickly triangulated the signal. "Got it. At least a dozen mercs. Probably closer to… fifteen, I'd say. Lying in wait for us."

"And is that a cluster of capacitors I see?" I asked, somewhat rhetorically.

"I believe it is."

"I think the mercs are in for—"

"Please don't say 'shocking surprise' or some similar electricity-related pun."

"Fine. Spoilsport."

Having agreed on a course of action, Miranda and I turned to the squad. For some reason, they had a mix of confused looks and amused grins on their faces.

Thankfully, I managed to channel all that amusement into frying random capacitors and electrocuting all the mercs who thought it would be a good idea to hide in their midst. We managed to reduce their numbers from fifteen to three, and all it cost us was a grand total of thirteen shots from various submachine guns. That's just under one shot per merc, and we didn't even break out the sniper rifles once. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.

We headed for the remaining mercs, being careful not to trip over one of the many bumps or protrusions. I led the squad up a slight ramp, around a capacitor…

…and almost bumped into an asari.

At first, she thought I was all alone. One-on-one odds, and all that. A smile spread over her face as she lifted her shotgun. That smile became a little more uncertain as I returned her smile.

Her smile abruptly vanished as the rest of the squad trotted into view.

Three biotic blasts, one biotic shockwave, three concussive rounds turned that formerly-confident asari into a very messy and bloody smear along the hull, the capacitor...

...and the boots and legs of four mercs who stumbled out from behind some big metal doohickey. They froze as the asari's innards splashed them.. We froze, mostly because we'd been a little too focused on killing the asari.

We stared at each other.

"Um... wanna surrender?" I asked at last.

The mercs started to look at each other, stopped—probably because they were smart enough to know how big an advantage they'd hand us by looking away—and stared at me with varying degrees of incredulity on their faces.

"What? Stranger things have happened," I pointed out.

"You gotta be joking," the lead merc snorted. "Our boss would kill us."

"You won't have to worry about him after we're done with him," I replied.

The leftmost merc—our left, not his left—laughed. "Don't know who you are, son, but no one tangles with the Shadow Broker and lives."

"We did."

"Not the Broker himself," the rightmost merc corrected. "Just guys like us. You cross him? In person? Only way you're coming out is in a body bag."

"Or in a bucket."

A clatter of footsteps heralded the arrival of another pair of mercs. "Why aren't you guys fighting?" one of them asked.

Someone from the first group of mercs—the one who hadn't talked yet—filled them in. They also laughed. Bitterly.

"We could knock you out," I added, hoping to sweeten the deal.

The mercs looked each other. One by one, they all shook their heads. "Don't think so. I know the odds are two-to-one. I know you're trying to let us live—first time that happened. But we can't take the chance that we'll get caught. He's scarier than you guys."

"Then... that's it, I guess," I sighed.

"Yep."

"Uh huh."

"'Fraid so."

The mercs raised their guns in unison. Unfortunately for them, they were just a little too slow. Miranda, Garrus and Kasumi had already launched their EMPs to fry their shields. Not to mention Liara's singularity, which was already in place. All but one merc got sucked in, spinning helplessly before Mordin, Zaeed and I set them on fire. Thane finished them off by violently collapsing Liara's singularity.

And the last one? She'd been getting knocked this way by Grunt's concussive round, knocked that way by Jack's shockwave and smacked back by Samara's biotic pulse. Before Legion or Thane could get to him, she tapped her rocket launcher. At first I thought it was a nervous twitch. Then I heard a beeping noise. Accompanied by a whining noise that was steadily growing louder.

The sharp tingle against the back of my neck clinched in. "Run!" I yelled.

We got clear just before the rocket launcher exploded, taking out the merc. Slightly dazed, we picked ourselves up and looked back. A pile of ashes and embers, still glowing from the heat, were lazily whirling around.

I thought about the Shadow Broker. How he'd built his own private army to enforce his empire. How he'd scared that army into following his orders and attacking his enemies, even when they outgunned and outclassed them. How each and every member of that army would rather die than go back and admit defeat.

Yeesh. What kind of guy were we dealing with, exactly?

* * *

We had to get past one more lightning rod, which was easy once we found the control switch. Then we headed into what felt like an artificial canyon, what with the way it was so deep and narrow. Good thing there weren't any mercs overhead—it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. **(9)** I was also thankful that no one was claustrophobic.

Though if any squad member was claustrophobic, at least they wouldn't have to wait too long before escaping those tight confines—we emerged into what was basically a bridge after six or seven seconds of jogging. It was only a couple metres from the bridge to the 'bottom,' so the drop wasn't so bad—if you didn't mind all the lightning that was crackling and writhing along its length.

Tali flinched as a particularly vicious arc of lightning flicked upwards and snapped. "Maybe we should be careful and watch our step," she smiled nervously.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Especially since there isn't even a guardrail to prevent a fall." I frowned as something occurred to me. "In fact, we haven't seen a single guardrail. Not even a bolt anchor to attach yourself to. I bet the Broker's agents just _love _patrolling the hull."

"At least the view is nice," Miranda offered.

"When you're not looking down," Liara shuddered.

Quickly—and carefully—we made our way across the bridge and up another ramp. It was a bit steep, but not as bad as climbing up the side of the ship. We emerged in a relatively clear part of the hull. Well, clear aside from the shallow cavities, oddly-placed protrusions and capacitors that dotted the irregular surface.

"There!" Liara shouted, pointing to a hatch at the far side of the... clearing? Courtyard? Space? Whatever. "That hatch leads directly to the communications signals I picked up when we were dropped off!"

The squad quickly raced for the hatch. The control panel was glowing red. A clear sign that it was locked. I tried to bypass it, but I had no luck. I couldn't even establish a connection. Tali and Legion were about to try when Liara pushed them aside.

"Hang on," she said. "I've got a bypass shunt program that can crack it."

She raised her omni-tool and activated it. The characteristic yellow-orange glow surrounded her forearm, accompanied by a dotted white line that wrapped around like a ring. Or bracelet, considering how big it was. To our surprise, the same white bracelet-ring appeared on the hatch's control panel. About two to three seconds later, five red light panels extruded from the ring to form a larger circle. Each of them was the same size, with an exclamation mark flashing in the centre.

"Firewalls?" I guessed.

"Precisely," Liara nodded.

"How long will it take?" I asked, nervously looking behind us. Cracking five firewalls sounded like it could take a while.

Liara shrugged. "I don't know, Shepard. I've never broken into the Shadow Broker's base before. Well, not this one, anyway," she amended.

"Enemies!" Miranda warned.

We quickly sought cover as Liara's program got to work. Tali zapped a merc's shields. "Jacob, preparing to fire high-impact shot" Garrus prompted. Jacob quickly lifted him up in the air. Garrus tagged that merc with a concussive round and sent him flying into the storm.

One down and… ulp. Several more to go. "Liara?" I called out. "You sure that shunt will work?"

Liara paused to launch a singularity. "It's illegal even on Illium," she responded as Miranda fried the shields from two of the mercs, leaving them open for the singularity to draw them in. "It didn't come with a warranty."

Raising my omni-tool, I fired a burst of plasma to set the floating mercs on fire. "But you tested it, right?"

"Here come more of them!" Liara said instead. Grunt and Zaeed fired concussive rounds of their own to disrupt an asari's shields.

I had a bad feeling about this. "Tell me you tested it!" I snapped as Mordin barbequed the asari.

"No time to talk!"

So we were stuck babysitting an untested program that might or might not work, while every merc crawling in or on the ship came storming our way. Miranda and I exchanged glances. "Situation normal…" she started.

"…all fucked up," I agreed.

I automatically raised my submachine gun and fired a shot, disrupting another capacitor. While the mercs nearby twitched and jerked around, Kasumi fired off an EMP at the closest merc. Samara and Thane hit the asari next to him with their biotics.

Jack looked around eagerly, letting out a curse with each turn of her head. It took me a second to realize her cursing was due to the fact that none of the mercs were close enough for her to knock over with her biotics. Even her shotgun—chosen for its unusually tight spread at long range—wouldn't have quite enough bang for her. She eventually gave up, grabbed her heavy pistol and opened fire.

Legion was about to follow, when a pair of rockets whistled down from overhead. The first one knocked out their shields—already weakened from some previous assault. The second one...

...well...

...kinda went right through them.

Specifically, it whistled right through the hole in their chest. Legion lifted their sniper rifle, took out one of the rocket-toting mercs, then turned to me and gave a remarkably human shrug. "This platform has discovered an unanticipated benefit to its current configuration," they offered.

"Looks like," I replied, aiming my omni-tool at the asari Samara and Thane had attacked earlier. A single tap sent a fireball her way. Confident that it would find its target, I switched focus to the second heavy support merc. Couldn't quite get a bead on her, but there was a nice big capacitor that was conveniently nearby. One shot ensured that there wouldn't be any rockets raining down from above any time soon. Then I turned to another merc who was limping for cover. Until he took a couple shots to the head, that is.

Time to check my HUD, I decided. Looked like more bad guys coming from... behind us, actually. One more in front of us and one above and to our left—those two would be from the first group. "Team One, split up," I barked. "Kasumi, Legion, Liara, come with me. Everyone else, prepare for more hostiles inbound from your six." **(10)**

"I have command of One-B," Miranda confirmed.

I should explain that.

There were two reasons why I established a leader and second-in-command for each team. One was so the team wouldn't be completely left in the lurch if something happened to the boss. The other was so the team could split into two smaller fire-teams for added manoeuvrability and tactical flexibility. For convenience's sake, I'd labelled them 'A' and 'B'.

I hadn't really formalized who would be in One-A and who in One-B (or Two-A or Two-B, for that matter), which was why I had to state who'd be following me. As One-A headed out, I began making things up on the spot: "We're going to take out the merc at twelve o'clock before turning around and eliminating the heavy trooper."

Speaking of which, the merc in front of us popped up. Just in time, as the capacitor charged up again. One shot got the capacitor frying the merc, one more shot—from each of us—dropped him like a rock. "No time to dawdle, though," I continued, as if I hadn't been interrupted. "We have to claim the high ground before the Broker's backup shows up. Legion and I will help everyone down below by sniping targets of opportunity. Kasumi and Liara; keep an eye out and make sure no one tries to sneak up on us."

By this point, we were heading up to the 'high ground.' The last merc from the first batch readied her rocket launcher. Before she could pull the trigger, Kasumi fried her shields. Liara knocked him against a bulkhead with her biotics, which meant that I couldn't get a bead on her to pop her head or light it up. So Legion had to finish things off with a far-too-cheerful combat drone.

I quickly swept the area for thermal clips and handed them out. Any spare clips were tossed down to the squad below, to supplement the ones that Thane and Mordin had scrounged up. "Oh, one last thing," I added, suddenly remembering the most important order of all: "stay away from the capacitors."

Liara and Kasumi shuddered before nodding in agreement. Legion just looked at me as if I asked why they were carrying around a chunk of my old N7 hardsuit.

With that taken care of, Legion and I crouched down and pulled out our sniper rifles—just as the second wave of mercs arrived. I centred my scope on the lead merc—an asari—briefly considered switching to my warp mod, then dropped that idea when I realized I wouldn't be able to drop her anyway. Not with one shot. So I tagged her so the squad members down below would know to prioritize her—just in case they needed a reminder—and switched to another target. Activating my cloak, I let my scope track just a little bit ahead of him, let out a breath and squeezed the trigger.

The merc's head vanished in a puff of helmet shards, blood and bone. "Liara?" I prompted as my cloak disengaged. "Are we done yet?"

"I'm sure it won't be much longer!" Liara assured me, just before she launched a singularity to ensnare a couple mercs. They'd lost their shields, thanks to... well, somebody.

After checking the door—still locked—I turned my attention to my omni-tool. Still charging up a dose of plasma. "You know," I groaned, "this makes me miss the old days. You remember the old days, right? When you could just slap omni-gel onto everything?" **(11)**

"That security loophole was fixed one year and two weeks ago," Miranda called out. Either I'd left the squad comm channel open or her genetically enhanced hearing had paid off once again.

"Which made a _lot _of people unhappy," Liara added.

"Lazy, untalented amateurs," Kasumi sniffed, sending an EMP to fry a pair of mercs that were trying to crowd in on our perch. One of them had a rocket launcher, I saw. And my omni-tool was ready to provide another offering of fiery goodness. How convenient.

I launched my fireball, then switched to my sniper rifle. The merc I'd hit was too busy flailing around in a human-shaped conflagration to bother aiming her rocket launcher. The other one only had a few flames to pat out. He'd be my target, I decided. I checked my HUD as I lifted my sniper rifle. Nope, cloak was still recharging. That was okay: the Widow was more than capable of taking out a lowly, everyday merc. I aimed, breathed and fired. One shot. One kill.

Seeing that things were under control, Legion had turned their attention to the battlefield down below. They deployed a combat drone to stall a trio of mercs, then began firing shots at their leader. Took a couple headshots, but they finally managed to drop her. Before her buddies could respond, Tali drained their shields. The squad fired several shots to knock them off-balance and set them up for Garrus and Grunt, who finished them off with a concussive round.

Meanwhile, Miranda had launched an EMP of her own at two mercs, supplementing its effect with a single, well-aimed shot to a nearby capacitor. The mercs dropped down, partly to avoid any more gunfire, partly because they were busy shaking and twitching on the hull. Unfortunately for them, Thane hauled them up and back into view. They each took several hits before Samara blew up Thane's biotic field. One of the mercs went flying into the capacitor in front of me. The other flew up into the sky and intercepted a lightning bolt. Both of them were vaporized by the sheer amount of voltage.

A brief flit of movement caught my eye. One lone merc was trying to sneak up and get the drop on us. Before I could swivel around, Kasumi and Liara hit him with a rapid onslaught of EMPs, biotics and gunshots. Guy dropped in a matter of seconds.

"Alert: multiple targets approaching from the bow," Legion warned.

Liara identified them first as they flew into view. "Rocket drones!"

What little cover there was up here was adequate at best against infantry, useless against flying drones. There was only one option: "Jump!"

The four of us promptly jumped down to the hull below and rejoined the squad. "Back so soon?" Miranda asked innocently.

"And you brought friends," Garrus murmured.

"How thoughtful," Tali chimed in.

I glared at them. "Shut up and shoot something."

Without further ado, I assigned a rocket drone for Fire-Teams One-A and One-B. Garrus did the same with his fire-teams. Kasumi whipped off an EMP before raising her submachine gun and joining Liara, Legion and I in spraying the drone with bursts of gunfire. It wasn't easy, mind you, what with the way the stupid drone kept weaving and dodging. Not to mention all the rockets that kept whistling down at us. Naturally, Legion was able to extrapolate the pattern behind our drone's supposedly random movements and keep their assault rifle firmly centred on target; all while monitoring any inbound rockets and ducking or dodging as needed. Needless to say, they got the last shot.

That left a couple more drones to take care of, plus one that Liara had trapped in a stasis field at some point. We chose another drone to pick on and quickly dispatched it. By that point, there was only one more drone, struggling free from a rapidly dissipating stasis field. Four EMPs and a hail of gunfire sent it plummeting out of the sky.

Remarkably enough, we had a full five seconds to catch our breath and restock on thermal clips before the next wave of mercs arrived. Liara shook her head as the first ones popped into view. "Look at them," she said. "Their attacks are so disorganized, the way they sent a dozen mercs here, a handful of drones there. They'd be more effective if they all attacked at once."

A collective groan rang out. "Please don't give the mercs ideas," I pleaded.

"Sorry."

Stifling another groan at Liara's ill-considered words, I knocked out two capacitors and shocked the hell out of the latest band of not-so-merry mercs. That bought me enough time to check the bypass shunt program—two more firewalls to go. Good grief, this was taking forever. Rather than depress myself with that, I did a quick scan of the battlefield. We were up against sixteen mercs, three of which were trapped in a singularity and burning away. That meant the odds were virtually one-to-one. Numerically. **(12)**

You know there's something seriously wrong with your life when your first response to that is 'That's all?' Especially after scolding another squadmate for saying the exact same thing out loud.

Shaking my head, I snapped off a shot at one of the capacitors again. Liara might have jinxed things, but she had a point: you'd think the mercs would've figured out by now the perils of walking near the capacitors. They had been patrolling this ship for who knows how many years before I stumbled in. Yet here they were, blithely walking by a clear and present danger.

Sure enough, the capacitor gave several of the mercs a rude shock. The mercs who might have been straggling behind came to a sudden halt, not wanting to get hit by any errant lightning. That just left the three mercs who were a bit too eager for a fight and the veteran merc who didn't let a little thing like getting electrocuted stop him from firing a bolt of plasma our way. Ducking the fireball, I activated my cloak, raised my sniper rifle and fired at the pyromaniac. To my surprise and disappointment, he survived, thanks to his shields and helmet. Thankfully, that meant there was nothing left when Legion fired his sniper rifle.

As for the other mercs who had charged into the fray, they were quickly learning the error of their ways. Kasumi had stripped them of their shields with a single EMP. Before they realized their vulnerability, Samara had them floating in the air. Miranda hurled a shimmering sphere of biotic energy at a nearby asari while taking out one of the spinning, screaming mercs with her submachine gun. Thane gave the same asari a biotic smack to the kisser before taking out another merc. Grunt and I finished the asari off with several bullets, a concussive round and a lot of yelling. The last two, needless to say, did not come from me.

Meanwhile, Team Two was having fun tangling with a group of five mercs. They were smart enough to scatter after Garrus and Tali dropped a pair of EMPs on them. That just meant that more people got to have some fun: Mordin set two of them on fire, Jacob hauled one into the air and Jack got the last two hovering above the hull.

Team One was busy pinning the last four mercs down while Team Two took out their five mercs quickly with gunfire or slowly through hot plasma. Under my direction, Miranda, Grunt and I took out one mech. Kasumi stripped two more mercs of their shields, then let Samara, Legion, Thane and Liara have some fun. The last one decided to stay down. At first, I thought he was cowering in fear.

Then I saw a series of red blips—so many, they looked like one big blob—appear on my HUD. "Company!" I yelled, deliberately raising my voice. Sure enough, the merc who had been signalling his buddies took the bait and popped his head up, no doubt hoping to get the drop on us. Unfortunately for him, I had my cloak engaged and my sniper rifle raised.

As the merc dropped back down—minus his head—I took another look at my HUD. The blob had resolved itself into at least twenty mercs. Plus several rocket drones. I turned to Liara and gave her a pointed look.

"The next wave looks like a big one!" she tried.

"You just had to give them tactical advice," I grumbled.

"But now there'll be fewer left to deal with inside," she said brightly.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Keep dreaming, Liara." I would've said more, but I had to make up some semblance of a plan to get us out of this latest pickle. "Miranda, Kasumi, Garrus, Tali; fry as many shields as you can. Then I want to see those mercs floating around or burning up. After that; Team One tackles the drones and Team Two keeps the remaining mercs at bay."

The way I saw it, this group of mercs had two things going for them. One, they had a numerical advantage of almost two-to-one. Two, those rocket drones—and any infantry toting a rocket launcher—gave them a very scary force multiplier that made them significantly more effective. If we stuck to our previous tactic of ganging up on hapless mercs and taking them out one by one, we'd be swamped before we knew what hit us. The only way we could survive is by taking as many mercs out of play as possible, _then _gang up on everyone else.

And why did Team One—and, by extension, myself—get the dubious privilege of dealing with weaving, dodging, emissaries of death-from-above? Because Team One had eight members, which meant two more guns than Team Two.

Before the mercs got into firing range, a thought crossed my mind. "Skip the lead mercs. Disable the mercs behind them." That way, the eager beavers itching for a fight would continue advancing, unaware that their backup had been sidelined. It's an old trick, mind you, one that doesn't always work. But it was worth a shot. Besides, if we sidelined the first few mercs, then the rest would just wait around until their buddies came back. Then they would come at us in force again, which would just be delaying the inevitable. Unless the followers got it in their heads to flank us—which would be even worse.

The squad complied, passing over the first three mercs and hitting the five behind them. Oddly enough, the guys spinning around in Liara's singularity or floating onwards and upwards tried very hard to avoid the guy who spent more time running around screaming than putting out the plasma burning on his backside.

While all that excitement was going on, we moved onto the next phase of my made-up plan. Technically, both teams had a two-to-one numerical advantage over their targets. Only difference was that Team One was tangling with rocket drones while Team Two was trading bullets with mercs. All things considered, I think Team Two got the better deal.

I gotta give my team credit, though. They didn't complain about having their shields pounded by rockets. Or suffering flash burns. Or the occasional bout of blunt force trauma. Nope, they just buckled down, gritted their teeth and got rid of every last drone.

"Garrus," I said once the last drone dropped out of the sky, "we got rid of four rocket drones. You only got rid of two mercs. Someone's been taking it easy."

"The last merc is a very slippery asari," Garrus retorted.

Easy. Slippery. Asari. The joke kinda wrote itself. Of course, one of the asari tagging alongside liked helping people find peace by killing them, while the other had a penchant for flaying people with her mind. Instead of opening my big mouth, I just rolled my eyes and fired off a bolt of plasma. "Satisfied?"

"Almost." Garrus aimed carefully and fired a concussive round at the burning asari. The impact sent her flying backwards and into two more mercs—whose shields had suddenly disappeared, courtesy of Miranda.

"Nice," I approved.

"I thought so."

Zaeed added to the conflagration with one of his inferno grenades, finishing off the asari and those two mercs. That left fifteen to go. "Same plan as before," I decided.

So we repeated our earlier tactic. Skipped a couple mercs, sent the next batch spinning, floating or burning. The mercs we skipped looked at each other and promptly ducked for cover. Activating my cloak, I stuck my neck out and saw them crawling back towards their buddies. "Will wonders never cease," I marvelled. "They learned."

"Perhaps they were listening to Liara," Garrus suggested.

"She did give some excellent advice earlier," Miranda agreed.

Liara glared at the two of them. "Not funny," she declared.

"Well, it was kinda funny," I hedged.

Liara turned her glare on me.

"But we can debate that later," I wisely decided. "Kasumi, Legion; follow me. Everyone else might as well entertain themselves with the mercs we sidelined."

While the rest of their squad slowly took out the four mercs, Kasumi and Legion followed me. We spent a couple minutes creeping away from the squad before turning around and taking a very lengthy detour. Legion figured it out first. "Shepard-Commander; you are planning to flank the enemy."

"Yep," I confirmed. "Figure you and I can have some more fun sniping them. Kasumi can sneak in every once in a while under cloak and sow a little chaos."

"Sure thing," Kasumi agreed happily. "Flashbang here, stab in the back there. All good... as long as I don't get hit by friendly fire."

"That would suck," I agreed amiably. With a quick blink, I opened the squad channel. "Listen up, people; I have a plan."

"Oh my."

"That's never a good sign."

"Shut up and listen," I snapped.

"Language!"

"He used to be such a good little boy."

Maybe I taught my squad a few bad habits. **(13) **

After they finished getting their kicks—and taking out another two mercs—I laid out my plan. "Here we go," I finally said. "Three... two..."

On 'one,' Legion and I took out two more mercs. On 'zero' or 'go' or whatever, Kasumi decloaked and delivered a devastating blow to the rearmost merc. All the surviving mercs in between were thus stuck with the dilemma of whether to try advancing again or continue their retreat. They only paused for a few milliseconds. Maybe less. However long they froze, that was way too long.

"There!" Liara said as the last merc collapsed. "The hatch is open!"

She was right: all the light panels were green. I checked my chronometer: four minutes. "Wherever you got that shunt program from, Liara, I think you got ripped off."

"Actually, four minutes isn't bad," Kasumi said thoughtfully. "It's not great, but it would've been more than adequate if it wasn't for all the mercs."

She had a point, I guess. So, rather than belabour the point, I got the squad scrounging for thermal clips. Then it was time to head inside. Finally. Grunt looked at Liara as we walked towards the hatch. "Dr. T'Soni?"

"Yes, Grunt?"

"Ask for more mercs to come so we can stay out here and fight some more."

"Don't listen to him!" the rest of us yelled.

"Awww..."

* * *

_(__1): Miranda's recollection of how much I had changed is accurate. Her reticence in mentioning my mission to find Shepard—and, ultimately, his body—reflects her concern for Shepard's feelings, a marked change from the Miranda I first met._

_(2): Extra-vehicular activity, which would denote anything done outside a starship or space station, beyond a planet's appreciable atmosphere._

_(3): __Shepard had placed me in Team One. He said that Garrus already had Tali, so it was his turn to have someone on his team from the old days. I suspected it was because he wanted to keep an eye on me. When I asked him about it, he denied any ulterior motives, claiming that Miranda would kill him—or worse—if he 'kept an eye' on anyone else._

_(4): Both Shepard and Mordin had straight faces during this exchange._

_(5): __One of Shepard's custom modifications to his sensor algorithms was to scan for components that would be easy to remove and could be sold later on for extra credits. Naturally, he admitted this with a complete lack of shame._

_(6): Not that locking them up like a more responsible person would deter Shepard._

_(7): From where we were stationed, we could hear a lot of shouting and several horrified screams that were abruptly cut off. When we passed them, all we could make out were the charred remains of something that might have been beheaded, dismembered and eviscerated. _

_(8): During Shepard's recollection of the mission, he called it a ship. He later referred to it as a base, or the more ostentatious title Shadow Broker Base, on the grounds that no 'ship' worth the name would be so 'damn bumpy.' I found that amusing, considering how many times those 'bumps' saved our lives._

_(9): A human idiom stemming back to the days before humanity possessed basic refrigeration. To prevent catches of fish from spoiling, they would be kept alive in large barrels. Since those barrels would be packed to the brim, anyone who fired a shot at the barrel would be guaranteed to hit at least one fish. Though I've yet to find a human who could explain _why_ anyone would want to shoot at a barrel of fish in the first place. Perhaps they needed a way to pass the time. _

_(10): Following Alliance military shorthand, this meant that further enemies were closing in from behind us. _

_(11): Omni-gel was obtained by breaking down unwanted or non-essential items—such as weapons, upgrade modifications and even hardsuits—into a composite of common, reusable industrial plastics, ceramics and light alloys that was significantly lighter and easier to carry. It could be used to construct small three-dimensional objects, thus facilitating modifications, upgrades and repairs on the battlefield. However, someone with enough omni-gel could also use it to hack or bypass containers, crates and safes—no matter how sophisticated the locking mechanism. While this might seem like a glaringly obvious security flaw, it wasn't until 2184 that the first security updates that prevented the use of omni-gel were introduced. By 2185, such updates and precautions were widespread and standard. _

_(12): According to the timestamps on our hardsuit sensor logs, two minutes and eighteen seconds had passed since the shunt program had begun. As for the three mercs who had been incapacitated, Zaeed had hurled one of his inferno grenades in their midst after I had captured them in a singularity._

_(13): Or this was a sign of their competence and morale, even under such trying circumstances. Or both. Just saying—oh dear. That last sentence would be something Shepard would say._


	5. …Where Angels Fear to Tread

**Chapter 5: …Where Angels Fear to Tread**

As it turned out, Grunt was just as much of a jinx as Liara was. Another wave of mercs ambushed us about eight seconds after we entered the ship. Thankfully, the corridor we were in had a couple handy alcoves just big enough to fit all of us—in threes and fours. Very tight threes and fours.

Note to self: institute mandatory showers before and after missions.

"More of them?" Liara gasped as a rocket whistled by us. "How many guards does the Shadow Broker have?"

A good man would refrain from saying something like—

"I told you so."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry."

Okay. Maybe I'm not such a good man. **(1) **

"_Hold your position," _a deep, guttural voice boomed out from the previously hidden overhead speakers, _"no matter the cost."_

"I'm gonna scout ahead," I told the squad. "I'll hug the right wall. Please avoid firing over there."

"Hang on," Miranda frowned. She launched an EMP at a merc. The one who was also hugging the right wall. Grunt hit him with a concussive round, one with enough velocity to send him bouncing off the wall and out into the open, where he was quickly mowed down. "Now you can scout ahead," she declared.

"You're too kind."

"I am, aren't I?"

Now that the social niceties had been observed, I activated my cloak and headed forward. After making my observations, I sent a couple commands to the squad using my HUD and pulled out my sniper rifle. I was cutting it pretty close, but if I'd timed things correctly...

...yes! The merc with the rocket launcher soaked up a storm of bullets just as a trio of EMPs exploded around her boss. Before he could react, I drilled a hole straight through his head and into the wall. That thing tends to happen when you fire a sniper rifle—that's intended to shoot over long distances—at point blank range. The bullet has way too much velocity to get slowed down—even when passing through helmets, skulls or brains—so it just punches right through instead of turning the ol' noggin into an exploding melon.

But I digress.

"Door at the end of the corridor's a bust," I reported to the squad, motioning to the door—and the bullet-ridden control panel—a few metres away. "Good news, there's a side corridor to the left."

"And the bad news," Miranda asked.

"Six or seven more mercs at least. Plus a lot of nooks and crannies for them to hide in, shoot at us..."

A small explosion cast a blinding light and a very annoying high-pitched whine into our area.

"...and toss the occasional flashbang grenade," I finished.

"What?"

"I can't hear you!"

"Speak up!"

Rather than strain my vocal cords in making myself heard—and announcing any plan or errant thought for the entire ship to hear—I relayed my orders through the HUD again. Once I was sure they figured it out, I activated my cloak again. Then I moved to the right side of the entrance into the side corridor, raised my sniper rifle and fired at the closest merc on the left. This time, my target's head _did _explode into a nice fine mist of blood, bone and reinforced metal alloy.

The rest of the squad unleashed a flurry of EMPs, biotics, plasma and bullets at the poor suckers on the right. Before the mercs realized that things had just changed, the rest of Team One had joined me. Now we had one team on either side of the corridor and could lay down a withering, criss-crossing hail of fire. Just like the mercs.

Unlike the mercs, however, we had received no orders to hold our position. This meant that we were free to advance down the corridor, one team leap-frogging ahead of the next. Not that we would have followed any order to stay put anyway—like the good little misfits that we were.

Team One got to advance first, mostly because of my suicidal tendencies. The merc who tried to get the drop on us got hit with Garrus's EMP. Then he started burning up, courtesy of Mordin. Jack used her biotics to turn him into a smear on the wall before he could pat the flames out.

Next, it was our turn. The sight of Garrus running around like a chicken without a head was too much for a rocket-toting merc to resist. **(2)** She only poked her head out far enough to swing her rocket launcher into position, but that was enough for Kasumi to burn out the launcher's firing mechanism—and the merc's shields—with a well-placed EMP. Samara, Thane and Grunt worked together to haul her out of cover, let her wriggle around helplessly in a biotic field, blow up said biotic field and send her flying down the corridor and into another merc. The loud crack and the awkward position suggested that the impact somehow snapped that other merc's neck—despite a fully intact set of shields.

While making sure that second merc was really and truly dead, I noticed one merc who was disobeying the boss's orders about holding position. Instead, she was moving forward. Probably because she had a shotgun fetish. And because she was one of those asari who loved getting up close and personal.

I wasn't the only one who saw her. "Shepard?" Miranda said.

"I saw her," I replied tersely.

"Plans?" That was Garrus.

"Same as before," I shrugged, setting another merc ablaze. "Only move faster so her biotics don't touch us. And anyone who doesn't have a clean shot at another merc do what they can to take down her barriers."

The modifications to my plan worked—to a degree. Much to my surprise, the asari actually helped us take out more mercs. The mercs clearly figured we'd be so freaked out about her—and the way she confidently strolled towards us without bothering about cover—that we'd forget all about them, thus giving them a golden opportunity to land a few free shots. They soon found out they were mistaken, much to their dismay. Their very, very, very short-lived dismay.

Speaking of dismay, I let that particular expression spread over my face when the asari got close enough to fire her shotgun. She gave me a cocky grin—just before a barrage of biotics and concussive rounds ripped the rest of her barriers apart and blew out her knee. Looking around, I grabbed my heavy pistol, activated my cloak and aimed at another seriously wounded merc. After taking that merc out, I looked down at the asari. She looked a bit confused. I gave her a bright smile, right before I beat the crap out of her. At least, that was the plan before one overenthusiastic punch snapped her neck.

Oops.

"Shepard," Garrus said. "Do you see that?"

At first I thought he was talking about the dozen mercs still guarding the corridor ahead of us. Then I saw what had caught his attention: there was a path running right next to the corridor. There were a few problems, though. One, it was completely open: no walls, no windows, nothing. Two, it was in a small cavity about two metres below us, which meant that anyone firing from above would have a definite tactical advantage.

Still, none of the mercs were using it. And if we moved fast, we could use it to flank the mercs and finish this fight. At the very least, we could split their fire. "Team Two, keep the mercs occupied. Team One: follow me."

Just because the mercs weren't using this opportunity, didn't mean they were stupid. As soon as they saw us go down the short flight of stairs and enter the cavity, they immediately opened fire. If they couldn't mow us down, they could at least stall us. Unfortunately for them, they played right into their hands. Two bright flashes told me that Team Two had used that distraction to knock out several shields. Another series of flashes—accompanied by flames and floating mercs—suggested that some of those vulnerable mercs had become victims to plasma or biotic attacks.

Not wanting to squander this opportunity—besides, I didn't have any popcorn to snack on while this show was going on—I continued through the path, gunfire and screams echoing behind me, and ascended the stairs on the other side. Activating my cloak, I raised my sniper rifle, only to realize where exactly the mercs were. Specifically, there were eight mercs in the corridor—Garrus and Team Two had been busy—and one just beyond it. I decided to take out the straggler so we wouldn't get flanked ourselves. One shot was all it took.

The sound of the sniper rifle firing drew a lot of attention—those things can be really noisy in close quarters—but that just divided the mercs' attention. More importantly, by the time they reacted, it was already too late. Miranda and Kasumi fried three sets of shield generators. Liara yanked those unlucky souls into a singularity. Grunt, Legion, Samara and Thane opened fire on the remaining mercs. Judging by the pattern of fire from the other side, Garrus must have split Team Two's fire between the mercs in the singularity and the mercs who still had their feet on the ground. Thankfully, none of us had to be told to be careful with our gunfire—it would really suck for us to go to all this trouble and fight through all these mercs, only to succumb to a bout of friendly fire.

Speaking of trouble, thanks to my tactic of flanking the mercs, it didn't take long to finish the fight. Better yet, there didn't seem to be any latecomers, which meant we could take the time to plan our next move instead of making it up. "Liara, Tali, Legion; hack into the ship's database and try to figure out where we need to go," I ordered.

"Got it."

"Understood."

"Miranda, Grunt; take up firing positions and make sure we aren't interrupted," I continued, pointing at the end of the corridor where we flanked the mercs. "Garrus, Zaeed; cover our rear. Everyone else, fan out. We've used up quite a few thermal clips. Time to restock."

"And find some loot," Kasumi added cheekily.

"That, too."

* * *

Apparently, the mercs weren't big on hauling loot in their pockets. They did have plenty of thermal clips, so it wasn't a complete bust.

"We finished downloading the ship's layout," Liara reported. "If we continue past this corridor and up the stairs, we'll head towards the prison block... and Feron."

Definitely not a bust.

We followed her lead until we reached an intersection. There was a corridor ahead of us and another to our left. On our right, another set of stairs. Liara pointed towards the latter. We were only halfway up when my HUD started picking up signals. More mercs.

I poked my head around the corner and down a corridor to get my bearings. There were two passageways to my left. At the far end of the corridor was a locked door—the prison block—with a bored asari guarding it. Unfortunately, I couldn't see any other guards. Which meant that there was no way we could get the jump on all of them. The best we could do was move some people to another position, let everyone else take out the asari and hope that that would open up some new targets of opportunity or lure the other mercs out into firing range.

I activated my cloak and snuck ahead—just enough to spot two more mercs guarding the door. While I blew one of the mercs's heads off with my sniper rifle, Samara, Thane, Mordin and Zaeed attacked the asari.

"Marks in the interio—agh!" the asari managed before succumbing to the flames.

"D-point, regroup!" the surviving merc yelled out, entering a code into the control panel and diving through. "Regrooooooup!"

"Team One to the prison block! Team Two: first corridor on the left!" I yelled. "Go, go, go!"

Team One charged towards the prison block, howling all the way. Well, Grunt charged and howled. The rest of us just charged.

The entrance to the prison block was comprised of a single small office, sporting nothing but light panels, a desk and a computer. And six guards, all of whom were huddling behind the desk. Must've been a tight fit.

"Don't shoot!" one of the mercs yelled. "There's sensitive data here! You wouldn't want to damage anythiiiiiiiiiiing!"

At least, I think that's what he was saying before the EMPs launched by Miranda and Kasumi fried their shields, disabled their weapons and probably did some serious damage to whatever data was stored inside the computer. Liara's singularity had them spinning in circles before I could ask why the data in that particular computer was so darned important. Given that the merc was probably bluffing—and even if he wasn't, it was too late—I just shrugged and set a couple of them on fire.

The continued gunfire echoing outside told me that things hadn't settled down yet. "Miranda, Grunt, Samara, Legion; finish the mercs off. Everyone else: let's see how Team Two was doing."

As it turned out, Team Two wasn't doing too badly. None of them were seriously injured, though I did see a lot of shields at half strength. There were a lot of merc bodies littering the ground. At the moment, they were focused on a team of five mercs, plus one merc who was trying to stem the blood oozing from a couple bullet holes in his abdomen. Jacob, Mordin and Tali were busy sneaking through a side corridor to spring a nasty surprise while Garrus and the others kept them pinned down.

Speaking of surprises, I spotted a salarian leading a trio of goons. If we hadn't come out when we did, they could've gotten the jump on Team Two.

"Shepard: deal with the mercs behind us."

Or not. Looked like Garrus knew they were coming. Now that I had blundered in, he could leave them in my supposedly capable hands.

"Kasumi?" I prompted.

"Uh... gimme a second."

"Miranda?"

"I'm not ready yet, Shepard."

Not what I wanted to hear. Guess they needed a little more time to charge up another EMP. Which meant we'd have to do things the old-fashioned way: "Open fire!"

By that, I meant _we _should open fire with our guns. I didn't mean for the salarian to hose us—or, to be more precise, me—down with plasma. We returned the favour, of course. But the slippery bugger still had a sliver of shields left when he ducked out of the way, leaving behind a nice little combat drone.

By that point, Kasumi was ready to fire off an EMP. Zap the mercs or zap the drone: which would be more fun? She wound up zapping the mercs. I had a similar conundrum but, like Kasumi, I wound up targeting the mercs with a well-placed fireball. We could always take out the drone with bullets. Or, if you didn't mind getting electrocuted, you could do what I did: scowl, bite out a couple choice words and pummel the drone into submission.

While I was having my fun, Thane took out one merc with his bullets before finishing off a second merc with his submachine gun. Kasumi kneecapped the last merc before emptying her thermal clip into his body. That left the last merc for me. I activated my cloak and silently crept forward. Sneaking around the corner, I saw the salarian. Shields still damaged, head nervously bobbing around.

I tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around, looking around in confusion. I waited until he was looking the other way before tapping him on the shoulder again. Again, he whirled around. This time, he swung wildly. He missed, of course. Then my cloak disengaged.

The salarian's jaw dropped as I shimmered into view. "Hiya!" I said brightly. Miranda picked that moment to fry his shields—and, judging by the way he was rubbing his eyes, temporarily blinding him. While he was distracted, I delivered a punch of my own. I didn't miss, of course. Then I just pulled out my heavy pistol and started shooting. Didn't take long.

As the din of my pistol died down, I noticed a distinct lack of gunfire. Could it be? Could the mercs all be dead? Could I start looting now? **(3)** I joined the rest of the squad and, to my delight, found out the answer to all my questions was yes.

"Thanks for covering our backs," Garrus said as I started searching for goodies.

"Anytime," I replied, swiping a med-kit.

* * *

Inside the prison block, I managed to recover a stash of credits from an account buried inside one of the computers—the one in that some mercs were hiding behind—before turning my attention to one of the doors. Only took a few seconds to crack it.

We entered another room overlooking a large chamber. Looking down, I saw a lot of monitors, most of which were facing a chair.

And the drell strapped into the chair.

Liara lowered her submachine gun. "Feron!"

Feron came too, groggily looking around. "Liara?" he whispered in disbelief, his voice ragged from lack of use.

"Hold on—we're getting you out of here!" Liara told him, running towards the nearest console. I followed her, albeit at a slower pace. Something didn't add up.

Feron watched her reach the console and start tapping away. "No," Feron managed.

A tingle fluttered over the back of my neck. "Liara," I cautioned. "Wait a—"

I was interrupted as a surge of electricity ripped through Feron. His entire body jerked, arcing out of the chair and shaking back and forth. If it wasn't for the shackles around his wrists and ankles, I don't know what might have happened. Liara jerked her hands away from the console and stepped back. "Feron!" she cried out. "I'm sorry!"

"I knew this looked too easy," I groaned.

"The equipment is... sensitive to tampering," Feron confirmed.

That would be one way of putting it. "How do we get you out?" I asked.

"This chair plugs into the Broker's info network," Feron replied. "You have to shut off the power. Pull me out now, and my brain cooks."

Liara activated a program on her omni-tool. Judging by the humanoid that started spinning in place above her omni-tool and the light highlighting different body parts, I wagered that she was running a medical scan on Feron. "Do you know where we can cut the power?" she asked.

"It won't be easy," Feron managed. "You'll have to go to central operations."

"What's the point of all this?" I wondered out loud. "A standard prison cell would take up less room. And what's with all this equipment?"

"I don't kn—aaagh!" He writhed in agony as another blast of electricity crackled through his body.

"It's a neural grounding rod," Miranda realized. "Probably set to activate on command or when it detects prolonged activity in the portions of his brain associated with speech."

"I also see medical equipment," Liara added in despair. "To make sure he doesn't... expire. We have to shut this place down, Shepard!"

"Agreed," I nodded. "Feron, what do you know about the Broker?"

"He did this to me."

"No doubt," I said, "but I was hoping you'd know a little more about who he is. Or what he is."

"I never got a good look, but he's big," Feron replied. "The guards are terrified of him."

"A krogan?" Garrus asked.

Feron managed a shrug. "I don't know, but not everyone who visits his office comes back out."

Even Grunt shuffled his feet at that comment.

"I don't suppose you have any idea how many mercs are kept on this ship?" I asked hopefully. "Or where the Broker got all of them?"

"Numbers, no. But he raises his own private force. They're completely loy—AAAAGGGGGGGHHHH!"

Liara glared at me as Feron got electrocuted again. "Shepard, we _really _don't have the time for this!"

She was right. If Feron had been strapped in here for two years, any intel he might have was probably out of date. And that neural grounding rod thing meant that extracting any useful intel would require more time and a lot of unnecessary pain.

"Don't worry, Feron," I assured him. "We're all getting out of here."

"Don't underestimate him!" Feron warned, his voice trembling with fear. "He prepares for _everything_."

"We've yet to meet the adversary who has adequately prepared for Shepard," Miranda said. **(4)**

"I hope you're right," Feron sighed. "Central operations is down the hall. You know the Shadow Broker's waiting for you, right?"

"I'm counting on it," I grinned.

"We'll be back for you, Feron," Liara said.

Feron glanced at his shackles before looking at Liara. "I'll try not to go anywhere," he said dryly.

* * *

"_I want all teams to outpost C," _the Shadow Broker ordered as we left Feron's prison cell/torture chamber.

That was our cue to pick up the pace, before—

"Get an LOS! Paint the marks!"

Aw, crap.

Two asari met us just as we were about to leave the prison block. They had excellent barriers and powerful shotguns. Neither of those were adequate compensation for fourteen fully-upgraded guns. Both asari were taken out before they could get a line of sight on us, much less think of using biotics.

Charging outside, we were met by four mercs. They looked around, did the math and ducked for cover. One of them had the presence of mind to toss a flashbang grenade. I kicked it aside before it could blow up in our faces and blind us. There was nothing I could do about the high-pitched deafening whine, though. Wincing as the noise pierced my ears, I motioned for Team Two to advance while Team One stayed put. As Garrus led his team forward, I activated my cloak.

Sure enough, one of the mercs took the bait. He popped his head up, hoping to take out Garrus, only to lose it a split second later. Thanks to my trusty sniper rifle.

Spying another merc, Miranda dropped an EMP right on top of him. Samara yanked him out of hiding, which allowed Grunt and Thane a clean shot. Two mercs down.

A scream rang out, quickly dying down to a gurgle. One merc left.

That last merc suddenly came running out, arms flailing as flames eagerly ate through his hardsuit. I sent another fireball to put him out of his misery.

Seeing no other mercs in the immediate vicinity, we decided not to wait around. I led the squad through a door at the end of the corridor, up a flight of stairs, around a corner, down a hallway, up another flight of stairs and into a corridor. A pair of guards gawked as we came barrelling towards them. "Outposts A to F are down!" one of them yelled.

"We need reinforcements!" the other cried out.

We made our move before they could say anything else. Garrus and Kasumi stripped them of their shields. Jacob pulled them up into the air where the squad could take potshots at them. While they were being turned into floating pincushions, I took the opportunity to empty another medkit and another bank account.

Then we went through the door and down another corridor to another door. How many of them did this place have, anyway?

Liara went through first, eager to get things over with. Miranda and I were right behind her. As I passed through the doorway, a sudden sharp tingle danced over the back of my neck.

Then the door hissed shut, cutting us off from the rest of the squad.

Whirling around, I saw the control panel suddenly turn red. It had been locked. Something told me I wouldn't have the necessary peace and quiet to hack it open. So I slowly turned back.

We were in a large circular room, illuminated up by a giant circular ceiling panel that looked like a shallow pool of light. Computer terminals were placed at regular intervals along the walls. In the middle, a series of columns stood tall, joined by the occasional console. Near the back, a set of stairs—running along either wall—led up to an elevated platform, filled with additional computers and consoles.

What drew our attention was the desk stationed just below the platform. More specifically, the large... figure who sat behind it. As Liara, Miranda and I approached him, guns at the ready, he casually deactivated the programs he was running, their holographic interfaces blinking out or receding into the desk. He was sitting in the shadows, so I couldn't see much. But it was pretty clear who he was.

As I got closer, I could see a little more. He seemed to have horns on his head and a set of small flaps along his jawline—both of which ruled out krogan. More importantly, Feron was right: he _was _big.

The Shadow Broker looked at us curiously. "Here for the drell?" he rumbled, his voice a deep, deep bass. "Reckless, even for you, Commander."

"Says the guy who blew up a trade centre," I snorted. "That bombing on Illium wasn't exactly subtle."

"Extreme, but necessary," the Shadow Broker replied.

"No, it wasn't!" Liara snapped, her body positively vibrating in fury and anger. "Neither was caging Feron for _two years_!"

"Dr. T'Soni," the Shadow Broker greeted her. "Your interference caused all this. Feron betrayed me when he handed you Shepard's body. The drell is simply paying the price."

"And all of your mercs paid the price for everything you did to Feron," I said. "Don't you think it'll be just a little tricky running a ship this size with no crew?"

"They're replaceable," the Shadow Broker dismissed. "Your arrival is barely an interruption."

All heart, this guy.

"Yeah," I grinned. "Especially since we trampled over everyone you threw at us. I'm surprised you didn't train a better reaction force. Somebody was bound to come after you for working with the Collectors."

"A mutually beneficial partnership," the Shadow Broker replied. "The loss of my soldiers is merely a temporary short-term loss compared to the benefits I can glean in the long run. The Normandy's IFF, for example, will give me sole access to salvaging the remains of the Collector's base."

"You think you can get to the Normandy?" I snorted.

"I think this talk has gone on long enough," the Shadow Broker said. "My operations are too crucial to be compromised by a traitor... or a self-styled hero."

"You're quite confident for someone with nowhere left to hide," Liara seethed.

The Shadow Broker barely spared her a glance. "You travel with fascinating companions, doctor."

"Was that a Doctor Who reference?" I asked, just to throw him off-balance. And maybe just for the heck of it.

"You know about Doctor Who?" Miranda asked.

"Yeah."

"Who's your favourite Doctor?"

"There's more than one?" **(5)**

"Didn't you know that?"

"Nope. I only know about Doctor Who from an article on the extranet."

"At least you brought me both Shepard and Ms. Lawson," the Shadow Broker continued, pretending we hadn't had that little side conversation. "The two of them present a wellspring of information... when they're not finishing each other's sentences."

I'm flattered?

"Alternatively, I could sell them to the highest bidder. Their combined knowledge offers a wellspring of information. And there are many groups who would relish the opportunity to cripple or eliminate Cerberus."

I'm… really flattered?

"You're not putting a hand on anyone," Liara burst out.

"It's pointless to challenge me, asari. All your minor successes have been possible because I permitted them. So I could lure you into my grasp. I know your every secret, while you fumble in the dark."

"Is that right?" Liara asked, calming down for the first time. Her head tilted, as if she was observing something.

"You're a yahg," she said at last, "a pre-spaceflight species quarantined to their homeworld for massacring the Council's first contact teams."

I had no idea how Liara knew that, but the way the Shadow Broker's flaps twitched suggested that she was right. The part about the fate of the first contact teams was a bit worrisome, though. As if the part about random guys not coming out of here alive wasn't bad enough.

"This base is older than your planet's discovery," Liara continued, "which probably means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago before taking over. I'm guessing you were taken from your world by a trophy hunter who wanted a slave..."

The Shadow Broker's flaps twitched again...

"...or a pet," Liara finished, her lips curving into a cruel smile. "How am I doing?"

His flaps were positively vibrating. Guess she struck a nerve. I waited for the Shadow Broker to say something. Instead, he got to his feet, rising to his full height...

...and...

...um...

...holy crap, he was _really _big!

...

And his flaps were still vibrating. It was entirely possible that pissing him off was a Really Bad Idea.

With a guttural bark, he slammed his fists on the desk, breaking it in two. He picked up each half, one in each hand, and hurled them at us as if he was tossing a baseball. I instinctively moved to my left, only to get clipped by one of the desk halves. Spinning around awkwardly, I collided with Liara and fell to the floor. Propping myself up on one elbow, I looked around...

...

"Miranda?"

She didn't respond. Apparently her reflexes weren't enough to compensate for the sheer velocity with which the Shadow Broker had hurled the remnants of his desk. She lay still on the floor, partly buried by the desk.

"_Miranda?!_"

She was _really _still.

A trail of blood trickled from her forehead.

My eyes narrowed as I grabbed my submachine gun. I loaded a fresh thermal clip, never taking my gaze from the Shadow Broker.

This fucker was going down.

* * *

As I emptied the thermal clip into the Shadow Broker's shields, I noticed a couple things. First, yahgs apparently indulged in facial tattoos, like the red one smeared over this one. They had four pairs of eyes and a triangular mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth. And they were a testament to the adage that a tuxedo could make anyone look good.

Of course, I was more concerned with how ridiculously powerful his personal shield generator was. I'd used up a full clip, as had Liara, and his shields were still at 50%. The M-76 Revenant he was toting didn't help. Somehow, he was able to fire it on full auto. With one hand. **(6)** Thankfully, the console I was hiding behind was bulletproof.

I quickly reloaded, noting that he was slowly marching towards me as he fired. At least, that was until he charged towards me. I braced myself to run, expecting him to vault over the console.

Then, with a bone-rattling roar, he smashed _right through the console!_

Another thing I noticed: pissed-off yahgs made up for their lack of vocabulary with sheer force and way too much muscle. "Liara?" I called out, scrambling for another piece of cover. Any cover would do. "A little help here?"

"This should slow him down," Liara replied, coaxing a singularity to life behind the Shadow Broker. It didn't get him off the floor and spinning around, but the gravitational pull did slow him down enough to buy me a few extra seconds. Raising my submachine gun, I fired again. A second thermal clip managed to drain his shields a little more.

Taking a gamble, I sprinted across the room, switching weapons on the fly. Sure enough, the Shadow Broker turned to follow me, giving Liara a perfect target. Noting that his shields were now drained, I activated the warp mod on my chosen weapon. Ducking his relentless weapons fire, I slid into cover behind another console. Closing my eyes, I listened as the gunfire grew louder. I waited until I could hear the Shadow Broker's steps.

Then I activated my cloak.

The Shadow Broker came to a halt. As far as his sensors could tell, I had just disappeared. He sniffed around, to no avail. Then, with a shrug, he turned his attention to Liara, who ducked as a sudden storm of bullets came pouring her way. Popping up, I centred on his head and fired a shot from my sniper rifle.

To my surprise, he simply staggered. Either the Shadow Broker had some kind of super-tough skin or that was one _very_ thick skull. Whirling around, he stomped towards my position, gun blazing.

Liara hit him with a biotic blast, deflecting his aim long enough for me to scramble to one of the support columns. Loading in a fresh thermal clip, I waited as the Shadow Broker pursued me, shrugging off Liara's shots like they were nothing. I kept a steady eye on my HUD, watching my cloak recharge. Once it was ready, I turned it on, stepped out of cover, raised my sniper rifle and fired again.

The Shadow Broker roared again, his left hand flexing. That was what I thought, at first. Then I saw his fingers tapping rhythmically on his left palm. He must have been entering in a command of some sort.

Sure enough, a shimmering white field coalesced around him. His movements slowed to a halt as the energies both flowed around him and wafted from his body. Liara snapped off several shots, none of which had any effect. She ran a quick scan with her omni-tool and shook her head in frustration.

"Some kind of stasis field?" I guessed, judging by how stationary he was.

"No, just a secondary shield of some sort," Liara reported. "These readings indicate that it's kinetically sensitive. Its strength is directly proportional to the amount of kinetic energy directed at it. Energy and projectiles just bounce off."

That meant we needed something slower than a bullet. And the only thing I had at hand were, well, my own two hands. Which meant getting up close and personal with something that was four or five times my body weight.

Aw, crap.

"Then we do this the hard way," I said, masking my trepidation with the cracking of knuckles.

Surprisingly, I managed to land several free shots to his ugly kisser. The Shadow Broker roared—either in pain or in annoyance—taking a few steps back. Encouraged, I rushed in.

The Shadow Broker gave me a toothy grin. The back of my neck tingled.

Then he swung his arm at me. A bright orange flash and a loud hum were the only other warnings I got before getting knocked on my ass.

Looking up, I saw a hexagonal shield covering his left arm. It was generated from his omni-tool. Probably a structure produced by the omni-tool's mini-fabricator, sheathed in a mass effect field.

"That's different," I coughed, getting to my feet.

And to top it all off, the Shadow Broker's shields were fully charged again.

"Oh, come on," I groaned. "This is so unf—ack!"

My rational and completely understandable complaints were rudely interrupted as the Shadow Broker raised his assault rifle and started firing again. One-handed. With disgusting accuracy. Another unfair point to complain about.

"Liara," I said over the comm. "Split up and start hammering at his shields!"

"Got it!"

Liara headed to the left side of the room; I got the right. The Shadow Broker came after yours truly, because that was one of the many unwritten rules of the universe. Yet another unfair thing to complain about.

It didn't take long to realize that the Shadow Broker's flashy omni-shield wasn't just for show. **(7)** I wasted several shots without even denting the damn thing. Naturally, the damn thing shut down just as I stopped firing. Of course, the Shadow Broker generated a new one immediately and had it in place long before I raised my gun again. I used up the rest of my thermal clip, this time aiming for whatever parts were protected by the disgustingly powerful yet relatively conventional shields. I found myself wishing for the rest of the squad to show up. Maybe a couple people with EMP-generating omni-tools.

Hell, even a bit of breathing room so I could drag Miranda into cover, see if she was all right and administer a little medi—hey! I'd almost forgotten about one of the little perks of being the boss: I could use my command override codes to tap into Miranda's suit and tell it to deliver a full dose of medi-gel. Surely that would get her up and going again! Especially with her genetically enhanced—and down-right gorgeous—physiology. Ducking behind a support column, I pulled up the appropriate functions on my HUD and—

_**Error: Unable to connect to hardsuit server [Lawson, Miranda]. If this error persists, please contact technical support at—** _

"Oh for crying out loud!"

"Shepard?"

"Never mind. Just keep firing!" I called out. I leaned out to re-acquire my target. Seeing how the Shadow Broker was a couple metres away and charging towards me, I did what any reasonable person would do: I turned around and ran like hell. **(8)**

Behind me, I heard a thunderous crash as the Shadow Broker ran right through the support column, turning it to another heap of debris. The hammering of bullets against my rear shields told me that the impact hadn't even slowed him down. I dove for cover, turning towards him as I slid across the floor and emptying the rest of my clip. His shields held constant at the 66% mark.

My shields blinked out.

Scrambling on my hands and knees, I managed to get behind another support column. Unfortunately, I knew that would only protect me for so long. I debated whether it was worth waiting until my shields started regenerating. Screw it, I decided. Time to cloak.

The Shadow Broker paused as I dropped off his sensor grid. He spent a second looking around, hoping he could see (or hear or smell) some trace of me. Giving up, he turned his attention to Liara, who had somehow found a couple thermal clips to replenish her stock and was making the most of it. Letting her have a bit of fun, I made my way up to the platform behind what used to be the Shadow Broker's desk. Before my cloak shut down, I fired another eight or nine shots at him.

Letting out a mighty roar, the Shadow Broker swung around, finger firmly pressed on the trigger. I ducked as he strafed the room and mentally urged my shield generator to kick in. Of course, it didn't listen.

"Liara," I called out as calmly as I could, "I think I have his attention."

"It would appear so."

"Feel free to pitch in anytime."

"For your information, I happen to be doing all the shooting while you just hide."

"I am not hiding," I retorted. "I am waiting for my shields to regenerate. Somehow, I highly doubt—"

"Shepard—"

"—that I will be able to help—"

"Shepard, you need—"

"—you take that sucker's shields out and try to put the hurt on him if—"

"SHEPARD!"

"WHAT?!"

"He's right behind you!"

What—aw, crap. While we'd been arguing, and my shields had been regenerating, the Shadow Broker had been climbing up the stairs. Just as my shields were starting to regenerate, too! I quickly scrambled to the other stairway. Shields took a pounding, but at least I had _some _shields back. More importantly, the Shadow Broker's shields were almost depleted. I raced to one of the support columns at the far end of the room—right next to the console that he had smashed through. Sure enough, the Shadow Broker stomped down the stairs, guns blazing.

Liara fired several shots while I made sure my cloak was ready to go. It would've been nice if my shields were at full strength too, but beggars can't be choosers. Besides, trading a little bit of shield strength for loot is a no-brainer in my book, even if said loot was another pair of thermal clips. Actually, given the situation, _especially _if said loot was another pair of thermal clips.

Loading one of those thermal clips in my sniper rifle, I activated my cloak, carefully aimed through my scope, waited for that stupid omni-shield to get out of the way… and…

…fired! Perfect headshot. This time, I knew how thick his skull was, so I was switching to my heavy pistol even as Liara hurled a biotic wrecking ball right into his ugly mug. Made every shot count. Then I abandoned my cover before the Shadow Broker could trample right through it—and, more importantly, me.

I played a little more tag with the Shadow Broker—and thankfully never became 'it.' **(9)** After a minute, I had enough time to cloak, grab my sniper rifle and shoot him again.

In response, he tensed up, tapped his palm and encased himself in the third kind of shield he had at his disposal. Or maybe that was the second. Whatever—he slowed to a halt, like a big ugly statue wrapped in a shiny, swirling energy field. Peeved, I holstered my weapons, ran over to him and started wailing away. Sure felt good, especially when I saw the wisps of energy waft around as I hit him, but I don't think it helped. My sensors could track his shields—the conventional type, that is—as they regenerated. Hell, any damage I did by shooting him or punching his lights out seemed to heal.

Before I knew it, the shield disappeared in—I swear I'm not making this up—a puff of smoke. With a harsh grunt, the Shadow Broker raised his left arm and generated another omni-shield. Great. Back at square one. I pushed against the omni-shield, hoping I could somehow slide around or slip under him and, I don't know, do something. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liara run over to help me.

The Shadow Broker let out another throaty roar before shoving back against me. Hard. For a moment, I was off-balance. Not long, but enough that the next shove sent me flying across the room, bowling over Liara. We rolled across the floor, but somehow slowed down before we crashed into the wall. Propping myself up, I looked at Liara. "You know, this is getting ridiculous."

She didn't answer, her attention caught by something. Her gaze moved down towards the Shadow Broker, then back up again. "If you can get him to bring up that shield again, I've got an idea."

I followed her gaze, not following her train of thought at first. Then it hit me. If she was right... "You got it," I nodded, reaching up to my sniper rifle and swapping mods.

Activating my cloak again, I moved around to his right. Sniper rifle wasn't quite the ideal weapon to use against shields, but the disruptor mod would help. Besides, it would deal more damage.

Of course, there was another downside, which I promptly discovered when my cloak collapsed and the Shadow Broker whirled around to face me.

If this was some comedy vid, the next scene would involve me running—back and forth, here and there, and round and round in circles—desperately firing off shots at the giant, bellowing behemoth hosing me down with gunfire and bulldozing through any obstacle in his path.

Of course, from my perspective, the comedy aspect kinda flopped because _that was exactly what was happening! _

I finally managed to make my way up the stairs to the platform, where I could keep my head down, creep to the other set of stairs and hope that my shields would regenerate. Even just a little. Because it would suck if I had to cloak and shoot the Shadow Broker again, only to find out that I was now naked. Not literally, of course. God, what did people do before they had kinetic barriers?

"Hey, ugly?" I called out. "Is that the best you could do?"

The Shadow Broker let out another roar.

Activating my cloak again, I lined up a shot and hit the Shadow Broker again. Liara pitched in, but I did most of the work. **(10)**

"Is this why you became the Shadow Broker? Work behind the scenes so you don't have to talk a lot?"

Another grunt, almost painful in its violently short intensity.

"'Cuz I gotta tell you, your social skills suck."

The Shadow Broker charged up the stairs. I charged down the other stairs just as fast. "You know, some people say stuff instead of barking or grunting. Giving orders, calling out offers of surrender, even the odd threat or two."

While I was taunting the Shadow Broker, Liara finally drained the last of his shields. I waited for him to pull up that special kinetically-sensitive shield thingy.

He didn't take the bait.

So Liara and I took turns hitting him with biotics and plasma.

Not biting.

"Geez," I yelled. "You'd think after all that info broking and data mining, you'd pick up a few good lines. What happened: too busy sifting through celebrity gossip?"

Still didn't take the bait.

"I'm not asking for much. Keep it short and sweet. How 'bout 'I will destroy you!' Well?"

The Shadow Broker let out another unintelligible roar, but that was about it.

In desperation, I cloaked again. Hadn't switched back to the warp mod. Didn't care. Because Miranda _still _hadn't woken up and I couldn't even patch into her hardsuit systems to see if she was just unconscious or whether she'd suffered a concussion or maybe she was bleeding out internally or...

...this fucker _really _had to die. **(11) **

Decloaking, I slotted my sniper rifle back in its slot and ran straight towards him. Lowering his head like a bull, he raised his omni-shield and charged. Created the perfect blind spot for me. It was a piece of cake for me to dive at the last moment and somersault past him. Somehow, I didn't get trampled on. Even managed to kick him in the groin.

Glaring at me, the Shadow Broker let out another roar before activating his little shield trick. As the white sheaths of energy wrapped around him once again, I glanced to my right. "Liara! Now!"

You see, all those wisps of energy I saw the last couple times weren't a trick on the eyes. It was a visual trail leading back to the circular ceiling panel above us. The panel that wasn't a big bright light, but an actual power source that the Shadow Broker could tap into whenever he wanted. _That_ was how the Shadow Broker could wrap himself up in an impenetrable, kinetically-sensitive shield while regenerating his other, more conventional, shields. Hell, maybe it prompted some hidden med-systems to synthesize medi-gel and heal any injuries.

It's a really nifty trick if someone, like the Shadow Broker, had the home field advantage. It could definitely get people, like us, killed if they charged in without any recon. But there was a catch. As Liara fired a devastating blast at that ceiling power source, I think the Shadow Broker figured it out:

It was only helpful if you could channel that energy in a _controlled _manner.

I watched as biotic energy rippled through the glass, spider web cracks radiating out ominously. That same biotic energy flickered around Liara like little wisps of blue flame as she gripped the glass. With a cry, she thrust her arms downward and the glass shattered. Suddenly released, the energy poured down like a thunderstorm, each droplet saturated and supercharged. All that power; unleashed, unchained, uncontrolled.

And all of it poured into the Shadow Broker.

He froze, quivering as that energy gushed into him in a sudden violent surge instead of the gentle, nurturing streams that he was used to. The sheer force of it all sent him toppling to his hands and knees. With a visible effort, he forced himself up. His eyes met mine, positively glowing with pent-up energy... and rage. His mouth opened in a silent roar as he lurched towards me, his body suddenly lighting up as the energy he'd absorbed coursed through his body, having overloaded whatever mechanisms his suit might have held. He grew brighter and brighter, glowing like a newborn star come to life.

And then he exploded.

The energy burst out of him in a blinding supernova. I caught the edge of the shockwave, which sent me flying. Once again, I landed on my ass, skidding across the room.

Dazed, I looked up. The entire ceiling—not just that power source thing—was riddled with large cracks, lit up by all the lightning that was crackling around. Liara walked over to me, holstering her weapon on the way. Silently, she reached out towards me. I caught her hand and let her pull me up. We looked at each other, panting as the adrenaline slowly seeped away.

Then I turned away and limped towards Miranda.

* * *

By the time I got to her, she was already awake. "Easy," I warned as she propped herself up on one elbow. "You took a nasty blow."

"And missed an equally nasty fight, from the looks of things," she murmured, her eyes taking in all the damage.

Ignoring her, I activated her omni-tool and initiated a full medical scan. "You don't have to do that," she protested.

"True," I conceded. "But I'm gonna do it anyway."

"I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself."

"I know you are."

"Then why are you—"

"Because..."

...

...

"Because?" she prompted.

My mouth opened, but the words just froze. I don't know why. I knew what I was going to say. But they just wouldn't come out. "Because I want to help you," I managed at last. It wasn't the words I'd intended, but it would have to do for now. "You don't have to do everything by yourself, you know. Not anymore."

Her gaze softened. "All right," she relented. "Go ahead."

True to her word, she let me finish the scans. The results were encouraging. Between Miranda's genetic enhancements and her suit's medical systems, she'd survived with nothing worse than a minor headache and a few cracked ribs. No damaged organs, no internal bleeding, not even a concussion.

"So about Doctor Who," I said as I helped Miranda to her feet. "How many Doctors are there anyway?"

A hiss interrupted us before she could answer. The three of us pulled out our weapons and pointed them at the door as it opened. To our surprise—and relief—the first face we saw was Garrus. "Whoa!" he said, understandably startled.

"Oops." I sheepishly lowered my pistol. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Garrus said, looking around, noting all the bullet holes, the various things that the Shadow Broker had smashed, and the ashes that were the only remnants of that monster. "Under the circumstances, I think—"

_"Shadow Broker. This is Operative Murat."_

Everyone turned and stared at a series of computer monitors. One of them had begun receiving a comm transmission. A blue line suddenly turned red and began pulsing in time with the speech patterns._ "We had a momentary connection failure," _a male voice said_. Can you confirm status?"_

I guess breaking that ceiling power source had more of an impact than I'd thought.

_"Operative Shora requesting update," _another voice, female this time, announced. A second monitor turned red. _"Are we still online?"_

Then a third monitor. _"Shadow Broker, I've lost our feed," _another male voice said. _"We are online and awaiting instructions."_

"_Shadow Broker, do we have a go?"_

"_What are your orders, Shadow Broker?"_

"_What do you want us to do?"_

One by one, monitors came alive, each with its own transmission. Each from another of the Shadow Broker's minions. Each confused, cut off, waiting for orders. Liara's eyes darted around, trying to catch all the messages, before closing her eyes. She was clearly overwhelmed. I couldn't blame her. All I could do was try and offer some support.

Before I could say or do anything, Liara lifted her head and slowly opened her eyes. She'd come to a decision. With a calm, almost lazy, grace, she walked towards the monitors. Reaching forward, she activated a holographic interface. She only paused long enough to decipher the controls before tapping a few keys and expanding the interface.

She took a deep breath and then started to speak.

"This is the Shadow Broker. The situation is under control."

Say what?

"We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware," she continued, making up her story on the spot.

Was this actually happening?

"It disrupted communications momentarily."

The door hissed open again. The squad whirled around, guns raised towards our latest guest...

It was Feron. That 'power fluctuation' must've disrupted more than just the Shadow Broker's communication feeds. The neural grounding rod that he had been strapped to must've gone offline, just long enough for him to get out. If I had to guess, he was probably making an escape run when he heard the 'Shadow Broker's' transmission, at which point he turned around and headed back. He'd probably assumed the worst, that the Shadow Broker had killed us all, and had come to exact revenge. Hence the pistol that he almost fired. **(12)**

His mouth dropped as Liara kept talking. "However, we are now back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day.

"Shadow Broker out."

With that, she tapped another control. All the monitors went dark. Blue. Whatever.

That was...

...well...

...unexpected. To say the least.

"Goddess of oceans," Feron croaked, finally lowering his pistol. "It's you. You... how?"

Liara took a tentative step back from the monitors. "Well, after this rescue, everyone who's ever seen him in person is dead. So..."

"...you're the new Shadow Broker," Feron finished in a stunned whisper.

"It'll be nice to have access to intel I can trust," I said. "But is taking over as the Shadow Broker really such a good idea?"

"It was either that or lose everything: his contacts, his trading sources. They could all be really useful. With the Shadow Broker's information network, I can give you... I can..."

She trailed off. I think it was finally starting to sink in what she had done. The sheer amount of information and power that she had seized. And just how overwhelming that could be.

I wasn't the only one who thought that way. "I'll, uh, check the power systems," Feron coughed.

"I'll help you out," Miranda chimed in.

Most of the squad left. Garrus and Tali stayed behind with me. We walked towards Liara. Her head was in her hands, shoulders shaking. I put a hand on her shoulder. She turned around, eyes wet with the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. "It's over," she whispered raggedly. "It's finally... for two years..."

I got it. She'd spent the last two years consumed with guilt. Feelings of inadequacy. The need for atonement. The burning thirst for vengeance. She'd never really come to terms with my demise. Or Feron's capture. Never really had a chance to grieve. I pulled her into my arms and gave her a gentle hug. "Hey, there," I said softly. "It's all right."

Garrus and Tali shuffled over to join me. I was grateful that I didn't need to prompt them for a group hug or anything.

Eventually, Liara stopped sobbing. Pulling away, she wiped her eyes—not very effectively considering she was clad in a scientist's hardsuit, but I guess it was effective for psychological purposes. "I spent two years mourning you and Feron," she smiled. "And now I've got you both back. I... let's see what we've got."

After a minute, she turned around. "No safeguards or user restrictions," she said, a bewildered look on her face.

I thought I was heard her wrong. Maybe I'd finally gotten one too many blows to the head. "No passwords? No encryption?" I asked.

"Nothing," Liara confirmed. "It's like he never anticipated anyone but himself being here."

Rather presumptuous and arrogant, but I guess it had been a safe bet for the last sixty years. It was a team effort to fight through all his minions and take him down, and even then it wasn't a sure thing.

"And it's all ours," Liara finished, looking like a kid in a candy store.

"What kind of information are we talking about?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Liara admitted. "Economic reports, technical schematics, political analyses... I'll need to go through his files. Come back later, and I'll try to have something useful for you."

"Fair enough," I conceded. "How're you doing?"

Liara looked at me helplessly. "I don't know," she confessed. "All I wanted was to avenge Feron. Or rescue him. But now... is it wrong that part of me wants this?"

"Depends," I shrugged. "Are you trading one obsession for another or are you moving on?"

Liara opened her mouth when I said 'obsession.' The fact that she didn't say anything suggested she was seriously considering my question as opposed to immediately dismissing it. Which was good—she'd spent far too long focused on how to fulfill her vendetta and not enough time considering _why _she should do so. Encouraged by that, I continued: "If it's the former, maybe you should consider walking away. If it's the latter…"

"…then maybe I could help you," Liara finished. "With the Shadow Broker's network, I can provide more intel and resources than I ever could back on Illium. Maybe I can turn this operation into something better."

She was looking overwhelmed again. Couldn't blame her. A lot had changed in the last few days. "Maybe," I nodded. "But there's no rush. Just take your time."

"Yes," Liara nodded. "Take my time. I... you're right. I should do that."

"In the meantime, I should go," I said. "You know, give you some space."

"Of course."

"Liara?"

"Yes?" she said, turning towards me.

"Don't be a stranger this time."

Liara smiled again. "Come by when you have a chance," she invited. "The doors are always open."

Now that was the Liara I used to know.

* * *

_(1): Most people who met Shepard would disagree. At the very least, they would say he was good enough. _

_(2): A human idiom for doing something quickly and without thinking about it. I believe Shepard used this phrase because of turians' avian ancestry._

_(3): Only Shepard would ask that last question._

_(4): While true, voicing this vote of confidence out loud was uncharacteristic of Miranda. Yet another sign of how much she had changed since I handed Shepard's body over to Cerberus. _

_(5): A human science fiction program beginning in 1963, revolving around the titular Doctor, a time-travelling humanoid alien and a rotating cast of human 'companions' who accompany him on his many adventures. The Doctor had the ability to deal with injuries that would be fatal to most sapients by a 'regeneration' process that transformed his physical appearance, which often had the side effect of subtly altering his personality. This allowed the opportunity for multiple actors to play the same role without suspension of disbelief. _

_(6): An extremely impressive feat considering the notorious recoil issues associated with the M-76 Revenant._

_(7): While it never became official, it was as good a term as any, considering the term used for the more offensive omni-tool-based weapons that were deployed within the year. _

_(8): __As I recall, he also screamed something along the lines of "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" and "Why does this always happen to me?" Shepard claimed that my memory was faulty. _

_(9): A human childhood game where one individual is selected to be 'it.' He or she must chase the other players, with the objective of touching or 'tagging' one of them, who will then become the new 'it.'_

_(10): From anyone else, that would be egotistical exaggeration. But Shepard was self-confident enough that he didn't need to resort to such behaviour. Besides, he was entirely correct._

_(11): I should note that Shepard was not the sort to resort to such language, even in his innermost thoughts. The fact that he did so—twice—speaks volumes. _

_(12): Shepard's guess was spot-on._


	6. A Wellspring of Information

**Chapter 6: A Wellspring of Information**

A month or so passed before I saw Liara again. **(1)** I was in between missions and thought I'd drop by to say hello.

OK, OK: maybe I also wanted to make sure she wasn't falling back into any bad habits. Talking to herself, plotting revenge, threatening to flay people with her mind. **(2)**

Given that we were in the midst of security sweeps, I was the only one free. **(3)** So I boarded the shuttle—marvelling at all the elbow room one could have when he wasn't squeezed in with a dozen other people—and flew down to the Shadow Broker base. Ship. Well, now it was Liara's base. Ship. Whatever. The other difference was that, this time, Liara directed us to the hangar bay and, once we touched down and the hangar bay repressurized, directed us to her new office.

_"Shepard! It's so good to see you."_

I heard her voice, but I didn't actually see her. Looking around, I finally found her peering at us from an overhead monitor just above the door. I didn't remember seeing that before. Of course, I was preoccupied with other things at the time. "Liara," I said with a smile. "Good to see you, too."

_"I've set up a few terminals with information I think you'll find interesting. Take a look."_

The door opened, revealing the office... and a drone. Remembering the last encounter I had with drones on this ship, I instinctively reached for my weapon. Then we realized that the colour of its holographic shell was white, as opposed to the usual red. Still, I took a cautious step back as it moved towards us. The drone came to a stop a metre or so away from me before lifting itself to eye level. "Welcome back, Shadow Broker!" it greeted us cheerfully.

Say what? "Liara? What's this?"

_"That's the old Broker's VI assistant,"_ Liara said, choosing to talk over the PA instead of hollering her answer through the office and out the door. _"A drone repurposed for information processing and analysis. It's actually been helpful with rebuilding the network, not to mention fixing up the office."_

"Please let me know if I can organize anything else for you, Shadow Broker," the drone said brightly before moving back into the office. I looked back up at the monitor with a raised eyebrow.

Liara shrugged. _"It also thinks anyone in the room is the Broker. "I'll play around with the settings later."_

The info drone must've heard her. "My manual is ready whenever you have a moment!"

At least it didn't say 'Shadow Broker' again. Shrugging, I entered the office.

Sure enough, it was completely restored. Scorch marks removed, wires re-spliced, computers repaired. Even the column that the Shadow Broker—the old Shadow Broker—smashed through had been restored.

I decided to start at the right and work my way around, for no other reason than because I usually started at the left. The first terminal I came across had an open folder and a blinking message icon. I clicked the latter:

_Shepard,_

_The (old) Shadow Broker constantly searched for investment opportunities. I've compiled a short list of some of the less-objectionable or questionable choices for your perusal. Feel free to pocket the proceeds, though you should be warned that you will have to make an initial investment and the outcome may not always yield a profit._

_Caveat emptor_, in other words. **(4) **

Let's see... pirate fleet massing in the Terminus Systems for a raid of outlying Alliance colonies—Hackett would probably want to know about that. Not quite sure why I had to shell out 1000 credits when I could just contact him from the Normandy. Of course, if Alliance Security traced the call, they'd probably spend more time over-analyzing the fact that it was sent from a 'Cerberus vessel' instead of actually mobilizing ships to counter the pirates. Maybe spending 1000 creds for an anonymous call wasn't that big a deal after all.

There were a couple other options, but something caught my eye before I could check them out. Was that...

Closing the terminal, I hurried over to a table. It was! It was a ship! A model of the Shadow Broker base/ship. Another showpiece to add to my collection! Woohoo!

There was another terminal next to the table. Looked like it was dedicated to survey information on mineral deposits. If I wanted, I could get a list of planets rich in various minerals for a nominal fee. Which would be useful for someone who _hadn't _strip-mined every resource-rich planet he'd come across. Pass.

Noting a control panel, I went over to check it out. Activating it, I watched as a set of panels retracted, offering a clear view of the weather outside through reinforced glass. There was another lightning storm outside, if you have to know.

I went up the stairs towards another terminal. A quick scan of its layout revealed it was similar to the tech lab terminal I used to research and distribute upgrades. Useful thing to have. Of course, I'd long since researched the upgrades and mods I'd picked up while helping Liara, but if there were any more, I could research them here.

_"Councilor Sparatus's mistress has made some unusual purchases lately," _the info drone announced, out of the blue_. "She may be expecting to move to a larger mansion."_

Ah yes. The turian Councilor of the Citadel Council. Who allegedly had a mistress. Should I dismiss that claim? Oh, the possibilities...

Pondering that juicy piece of gossip, I headed for the door. No, I wasn't leaving. There was another door situated between the two stairs. It led to a set of private quarters. Dimly lit. Spartan and utilitarian. Guess the Shadow Broker killed—or ate—his interior decorator.

Feron was sitting on a very luxurious set of sofas, staring off into space. To the left, I spotted another terminal, but that could wait. "Hey, Feron!"

"Shepard!" Feron got to his feet. "Glad you stopped by. We don't get many visitors."

"No, I suppose not," I said. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm... I'll be all right," he replied, sitting down. "I wasn't always strapped into that interrogation chair."

And when he was… "A friend of mine is a drell," I said. "He told me about your eidetic memory."

"It came in handy on the bad days," Feron agreed.

"How many of those days were 'bad days'?" I asked.

"A lot," Feron rasped. "It gets fuzzy. The Shadow Broker—the _old _Shadow Broker—made the guards watch. As an example."

Yet another reason why the galaxy was a slightly better place.

"I never did say thanks for the rescue," Feron told me.

"You didn't have to, but you're welcome," I smiled. "Liara never gave up on you, Feron. We just helped her out. **(5)** Anyway, I should be thanking you. You and Liara retrieved my... body."

"With some help," Feron admitted. "Cerberus head-hunted Liara and I to retrieve your body, as you put it. I was working for the Broker at the time. He's the one who recovered your remains."

"What turned you against the Shadow Broker?" I wanted to know.

"He started working for the Collectors," Feron replied. "You weren't their first victim."

No, from what I understood, the Collectors had been 'gathering samples' for a while before developing an unhealthy—and lethal—fixation on humans.

"I am—was—an information trader. Not a slaver."

Gotta love it when personal and professional standards mesh like that.

He shook his head slowly. "I'm still amazed Liara came looking for me. I'll never forget what all of you did."

"I can log that in the archives for you, sir," the info drone offered, gliding right into Feron's face. He pushed it away. "I see you've met the secretary," he sighed.

"Looks like you've made a friend," I grinned.

Feron rolled his eyes. "The drone follows _everyone_. Sometimes I wonder why the Broker kept it around."

"I'm a shell for a specialized data-processing VI custom-built to your specifications, Shadow Broker!" the drone told Feron earnestly.

"It does help coordinate the network's massive information feeds," Feron conceded, "but it could use a different interface tone."

Somehow, I think _that _was what annoyed him.

"You deemed my default personality sufficient for your needs, Shadow Broker."

"I wish it would stop calling me that," Feron groaned. "It's fine for Liara to be called the Shadow Broker, but the rest of us?"

"It is annoying," I agreed. "Speaking of Liara, she spent two years looking for you. By all accounts, she didn't stop once."

"She's a good friend," Feron said. "Better than I deserve."

""How do you think Liara's doing?" I asked. "As the new Shadow Broker, I mean."

"Operations are almost fully recovered after a 10.5% dip in efficiency," the info drone announced cheerfully.

Ignoring the drone, Feron answered my question. "Ever since we repaired the network, Liara's been glued to the archives. I caught her sleeping at her desk more than once," he laughed. "She's busy, but I think she likes it that way."

"What will you do now that you're a free man?" I wanted to know.

"I want to help Liara finish rebuilding this place," Feron replied. "After that..." He broke off. Clearly he hadn't thought that far ahead.

The drone interpreted that silence as an unspoken request for help. "Your schedule's getting full, sir. Let me synch it to your omni-tool."

"No thanks, I'm fine," Feron said curtly.

"Analysis of your activity over the last—"

"Drop it. Now."

"Yes, Shadow Broker."

"Take it easy," I cautioned, before Feron did something drastic like kick the info drone into the closest wall. "You've been through a lot."

We shook hands. "Thanks," he replied.

* * *

Leaving Feron behind to enjoy some music—I could swear that I'd heard that soundtrack before—I went to check out the terminal that I'd spotted when I first entered the quarters. It was located on a circular platform, accessible via a small flight of stairs. Spying the ever-helpful—and ever-cheerful—info drone stalking me, I turned towards it. "What does this console do?"

"This is the video surveillance access point," the drone replied. "I've queued up the archive footage you requested on your last visit, Shadow Broker."

Again with the Shadow Broker moniker. I was starting to feel sorry for Feron, and I'd only been here for five or six minutes.

"Remember, you can zoom in for more detailed viewing and can pause any time during playback."

Okey-dokey!

The first clip was of Aria talking to some Blue Suns merc, keeping him occupied as a bunch of goons got into position. When they were ready, she gave the signal. The poor merc had just enough time to frantically look around before he got gunned down. I entertained myself with the idea of telling Aria that she'd been caught on the Shadow Broker's candid camera. Watching her flip out might be worth the price of admission. On second thought, better to keep it to myself. You never know when that kind of intel might come in handy. And I could use all that time when I _wasn't _telling Aria imagining the various ways that she might go postal.

Boy, I need to get a life.

Next clip showed Emily Wong, ace reporter for FCC. **(6)** Which reminded me—she'd sent me an e-mail a while ago asking for an interview. Maybe I should do it. Might be nice to have a member of the damn liberal media on my side for a change. **(7)** When she wasn't dancing the night away in the Dark Star Lounge with two other women—one human, one asari. Looked like they were having a good time.

Clip number three showed some guy, who the info drone helpfully ID'd as 'Fred Mazzei,' talking to a mirror in a bathroom on the Citadel. Though that begged the question: who the heck was Fred Mazzei? Maybe I should find out.

I hopped to the next clip… and who did I see but my bestest bud _Udina_! Shoving some C-Sec cop! Now this was bound to be… wait. I played the clip again. Udina and the cop met. They talked. They shoved. And that was it. Seriously. Maybe the Shadow Broker was trying to compile some blackmail material. Guess it was too late to ask.

The next clip caught my attention too—and not in a good way. Looked like the Shadow Broker was gathering intel on Bailey as well. Don't get me wrong: I like Bailey. Good cop. Does his best to keep the peace. But he's not what you'd call a stranger when it comes to getting his hands dirty. If someone with the Shadow Broker's resources started poking around his closet, chances were good that they'd find at least one or two skeletons.

The next couple clips weren't quite as interesting. My favourite tabloid reporter Khalisah al-Jilani being punched by a krogan. Some other krogan—who the info drone cheerfully told me was Urdnot Torsk—chasing a pair of pyjaks. Keeper #20—how the heck could you tell those guys apart, anyway?—stuck in an access shaft.

After a while, I got bored, so I left and went back to the main office. There was another couple terminals that I hadn't had the chance to check out yet. One of them was apparently dedicated to tracking deliveries of shipments from the Shadow Broker's numerous contacts. Let's see what was in this…

…um…

…this week…

…

10 000 units of eezo?

A schematic swiped from the STG archives for a _sniper rifle upgrade?!_

For once, the universe was finally showing mercy on me.

I quickly and calmly transferred the schematic to my omni-tool and arranged for the eezo shipment to be moved to the Normandy's cargo bay. **(8)** Then I investigated the last console, idly wondering why they weren't all linked together so you could view everything from one station.

…

Hoo boy.

The console had dossiers. Lots of dossiers. On every member of my squad and several other people to boot. Free to read and peruse at the push of a button or the tap of a console keystroke. And no one—I quickly checked. Everyone was off doing their own thing, which mostly meant standing around in ones and twos, staring aimlessly into space.—was with me.

This was a veritable gold mine of information to sate my rampant curiosity. And all I had to do was suppress the nagging feeling that that would be violating the privacy of my crewmates, squadmates and friends. Shouldn't be hard, right? I mean, I'd been doing it every time I barged in during my multiple daily rounds. Every time I'd marched up to random strangers and forced myself into their personal affairs. Every time I'd blatantly stolen or swiped credits or goodies from their owners, often when they were in the same room. Every time I'd sniffed around for intel that might or might not compromise operational or galactic security. This time was no different.

It wasn't any different.

Right?

* * *

Who was I kidding? It was different. So I told the squad about the dossiers—big weight off my shoulders, believe me—and told them that I'd let them look at it first before I started poking around. And that, I figured, was the end of it.

Then Garrus asked to meet me in the Shadow Broker ship. Specifically, by the console that had all the dossiers. The very next day.

"Hey Garrus," I greeted him. "What's up?"

"Took a look through what the Shadow Broker put together. Thought you might be interested in a peek."

I looked at him for a moment. "Really?"

"Really."

"Why?"

"Because watching you drive yourself nuts wondering what's in the files isn't nearly as entertaining as I thought."

"Funny."

"Besides, if anything happens to me, I need to know that Mom'll be okay."

"Your mom?" I repeated. "Wait, Garrus. Maybe we should stop and—"

Garrus reached over and opened his dossier. I stopped talking, as he knew I would. Damn it, I'm becoming way too predictable.

First couple files clued me in to his mom. According to her medical records, she had Corpalis Syndrome; some rare disease that was usually terminal.

"Geez, I'm sorry, Garrus." Trite, but what the heck were you supposed to say in this kinda situation? "How's she doing?"

In response, he opened the next file. It was a transcript of a conversation he'd had with... huh. I didn't know Garrus had a sister. Anyway, they were chatting while she was on Palaven and he was on the Normandy. Judging by the timestamp, it was just after the Collectors had abducted the crew from the Normandy. I quickly skimmed through the chat. Long story short: Garrus had been out of contact because he was busy 'playing Spectre', Mom wasn't doing so hot, there was an offworld salarian medical centre that might be able to help but medical insurance wouldn't cover it, Garrus had offered to foot the bill even though he didn't have any official paying job and there was a little undercurrent of tension for him 'screwing around' instead of being by his mother's side.

"You do know that any of us would be more than happy to help," I said gently. **(10)**

"I know that," Garrus nodded. "And I did get help."

The next file explained everything:

_Mr. Vakarian,_

_On behalf of the Helos Medical Institute, I would like to thank you for your efforts. It has been understandably difficult to get Collector tissue, given the sensitive situation on the human colonies, so the samples you sent to us have been extremely helpful. Please also offer my sincere thanks to Dr. Solus—I understand he made some calls to the Special Tasks Group, and as a result, our corporate clearance was upgraded. _

_Your concern about Corpalis Syndrome is well-founded. While rare, it's an ugly disease. The neurological degeneration is both difficult to witness and nearly impossible to halt. We are in fact working on some test trials for a new treatment, and I believe that with our new STG clearance, we can get all fees for the trial members waived as a governmental cooperation effort with the Turian Hierarchy._

_Thank you again for your assistance. Donations like these help keep us running. Per your request, we will keep your donations strictly anonymous._

_Sincerely,_

_Dr. Jelith Kieron_

_Helos Medical Institute_

"Glad to see that Mordin could help," I said. "He—wait a sec." If I was reading the timestamp right, the e-mail was sent just before we went through the Omega 4 relay. That meant... "You got all this sorted out in a couple hours?"

"What can I say?" Garrus shrugged. "Mordin doesn't just talk fast."

"And your mom?"

"Too soon to say for sure, but her convulsions have slowed down. I'd say that's good news."

"Yeah," I agreed. "What's this file here? The one marked 'Kill List'?"

"Apparently, I didn't do that great a job of covering my tracks," Garrus admitted. "Either that, or the Shadow Broker was really good at putting the clues together. On the bright side, at least he got the good ones."

He wasn't kidding. Rhi'hesh Shurta (gang leader)—killed by headshot. Selkeet Shirion (gang enforcer)—also killed by headshot. "Am I sensing a trend here?"

"Keep going."

Kron Harga (slaver): gunshot wounds to every extremity and primary organ I knew—and a couple I didn't—rifle butt fracture to the face, and third-degree burns to most of his body due to a crate of volatile materials exploding. Seemed like a little overkill, but this was a _slaver _we were talking about.

Har Urek (saboteur) suffocated because his environmental suit suddenly and inexplicably 'malfunctioned.' Gus Williams (weapons smuggler) died by a headshot... fired from a smuggled sniper rifle. Thralog Mirki'it (red sand dealer) OD'd from red sand, applied directly to all four of his eyes. Zel'Aenik nar Helash (viral specialist, serial killer and the kinda quarian who probably wouldn't be invited back to the Migrant Fleet any time soon) died... of a cough. "Making the punishment fit the crime?" I asked.

"What can I say?" Garrus grinned. "I've got style."

He certainly did, if the specs on his visor were any indication. Kuwashii visor, just like mine. Except my visor couldn't magnify up to 100x, it didn't have an integrated target tracing package that could calculate trajectories and compensate for wind and gravity. It didn't have sonar, LADAR, thermal or EM targeting capabilities. It didn't have an independent biosensor that could detect heart-rate fluctuations or changes in breath patterns for anyone within 10 metres that lived in Citadel space. It certainly couldn't detect and analyze any energy field within 100 metres to provide the best firing solution for collapsing kinetic barriers or synthetic shield support. And I really loved the hotlink that could calculate trajectories from incoming fire and correct for the usual micro-refraction that happens when your return shots pass through your shields. And the part where Garrus carved the names of his Omega crew into the visor—minus Sidonis's, which was burned out—was a nice touch. Though the optional kill-timer to track the number of hostiles killed by Garrus or anyone on his team wasn't really necessary.

Yeah, I was a little envious. And jealous. Not that I could reveal that, of course: "Admit it," I said. "That audio link function on your visor—the one that plays music on cue—you ripped that off from me, didn't you?"

* * *

That dossier gave me quite a bit of food for thought—and not just about the visor. The Shadow Broker had made a little summary of Garrus based on his analysis. He agreed with my assessment that Garrus had amazing tactical and team-building skills... but felt that he'd never be able to fully develop his potential while taking orders from me. I mean, I didn't want him to _leave_ or anything, but if the Garrus I'd come to know was being 'overshadowed' by me, I really wanted to see what he could do on his own. Note to self: give him more command authority and less time to calibrate the Normandy's guns.

Grunt came up just as Garrus was leaving. "Shepard."

"Grunt."

There was a pause. "Something I can do for you?"

"Yeah. Wanted to see what the Shadow Broker said about me. Thought you should see it too. That's what Garrus did, right?"

"Well, yeah... but that doesn't mean _you _have to—"

"You are my battlemaster, Shepard."

The way he said that suggested that the matter was settled. Okay, then. Let's see what Grunt was up to.

Apparently when Grunt wasn't going over all the stuff that Okeer downloaded into his brain, he was on the extranet. Surfing for articles on krogan history, great wars, krogan victories—apparently deciding that that would be more cheerful than articles on the genophage and great generals—because Okeer apparently wasn't great. He'd also discovered the wonders of extranet shopping. Some purchases I could understand, like the Ultra Black Ops Mega Catalog—which obviously wasn't _really _black ops—and 'The Madness of Sacrifice: The Unauthorized Biography of Warlord Okeer.' Even an economy box of Fishdog Food Factory's 'Tastee Bites.' Though why he got premium engine oil was beyond me.

After he completed the Rite of Passage, his extranet surfing shifted focus. He started learning about Tuchanka. About Wrex. He also started learning about large predators and lizards. Got really fixated on dinosaurs. Probably because a stray extranet search result on Wrex came up with 'tyrannosaurus rex.'

He had also done some research on me—God, that was embarrassing. Elysium hero-love all over again. At least he expanded his search to studying human history, earth wars, and other important humans. Curiously enough, he'd apparently developed an interest in human literature. Not quite sure why. **(9)** But he got really interested the works of some guy named Hemingway. Downloaded—or started to download—a lot of his books: 'The Sun Also Rises,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'The Old Man and the Sea.'

Maybe Grunt had grown up a lot faster than I'd realized. Developed his own interests and hobbies, something more sophisticated than youthful exuberance or mindless bloodlust. I looked at the rest of Grunt's extranet purchases.

When Fauna Attacks! Volumes 1-10

Batax's Hot Fish Spice

Vaenia, Limited Edition

Asari Confessions 26: True Blue

Fornax Special Spotlight: Krogan Edition

Or maybe Grunt still had a ways to go. "'Garr the Krogan Battlemaster' and other Captain Cosmic Action figures?" I asked.

"It's got real Smash-Your-Enemies action!" Grunt grinned.

Not much I could say to that. "Okay then. Glad we had this talk."

"Shepard."

"Grunt."

* * *

Jack picked that moment to stomp up to me. I pretended not to notice how quickly Grunt moved away. "Hi Jack."

"Don't give me that 'Hi' bullshit, Shepard," Jack snapped. "Your new Shadow Broker gave you all sorts of juicy crap on each and every one of us and you _didn't _take a peek?"

"Nope."

"Really? You? You can't go through a single _room _without groping around for any hot piece of loot you can lay your hands on. You keep bugging people over and over again, asking about their _feelings_ and _what's on their mind_. After all that, you kept your big fat nose out of _my _business?"

She had a point there. "What can I say?" I shrugged. "Sometimes I surprise myself."

...

For a moment there, I thought she might deck me.

...

Jack finally turned away and opened up her dossier, hitting the console with a little more force than necessary. She turned and glared at me, as if daring me to look over her shoulder. Which was partly why I'd turned away.

"Really, Shepard? Not gonna look?"

"Nope. Not gonn—ack!"

Jack had grabbed my shoulder and whirled around. "Go ahead. Everything you wanted to know about me."

Something in her eyes told me this was her way of saying she trusted me with whatever secrets the Shadow Broker had uncovered. "Thanks," I said simply.

Turned out Jack's distrust of Cerberus extended itself to her extranet browsing—rather than trust the Normandy's connection, she used her own private omni-tool. She did her best to cover her tracks by deleting her extranet history using a commercial VI program, which was more than most of the galaxy's population. Sadly, the Shadow Broker was up to the task of getting around that to ferret out her secrets.

Some of those secrets weren't too bad. She'd done a bit of research on the people she was stuck with, using keywords like Cerberus, Cerberus and Pragia; Pragia; Teltin; Cerberus and Teltin; Cerberus doctors; Illusive Man. Looking up Miranda Lawson was interesting: I'd like to think it was an effort to better understand the XO of the ship she was on, but it was probably more out of spite.

Other things were a bit more random. Vids of my Spectre inauguration (closed after 12 seconds, thank God. I really didn't need to relive that again.). The attack by Saren and the geth on the Citadel two years ago. Interior footage of the Normandy SR-1 in its final moments before it crashed on Alchera.

It was telling that a lot of her research was focused on escape routes. Normandy escape pod procedures. Locations of mass relays and shuttle ports. Travel warnings. Citadel no-flight zones. The kind of thing you pay attention to when your survival instincts have been calling the shots all these years. That goes double when you factor in her reservations about sticking around with Cerberus.

Somehow, I managed not to laugh when I saw the next couple items. Seemed like Jack had signed up on the Citadel Newsnet forums, only to get banned for excessive and repeated swearing, derogatory comments, inflammatory comments, and circumventing worksafe filters. She'd also signed up for something called Galactic Champion Poker 2100 only to get banned after fifteen minutes for a fight with the other players and online moderators.

What was really illuminating was her attempt at poetry. Seems she wrote a poem and submitted it to Galactic Poetry Monthly, only to have it rejected because of their guidelines for metered verse. Rather narrow-minded, I thought, and I said as much. Jack's response was... predictable.

And then came a transcript of a conversation at the Helios Medical facility on Eden Prime:

_Doctor Castor: I'm so sorry. These things... there's so much about prenatal Element Zero exposure that we don't understand. _

_Unidentified Woman: But... no! No, she was fine! She was fine and happy! You just told me she needed a checkup! _

_DC: It happened quickly. We were unable to bring her back. _

_UW: You just said she needed a checkup! How did this happen? _

_DC: I'm very sorry. _

_UW: I want to see her! _

_DC: No ma'am. Believe me. After what the seizures did to the poor child's body, you don't. _

_UW: I don't... How did this happen? _

_DC: We don't know. I'll be honest. This isn't the first infant we've lost this way. _

_UW: Why? God. Why? _

_DC: We're working on treatments. The government doesn't put much effort into it, though. Don't want to interfere with their biotic recruitments. _

_UW: Sons of bitches. Those sons of bitches! _

_DC: Listen... this may not be the right time, but if you'd be willing to let us study your baby's body, we can do some tests. _

_UW: You want to keep her? _

_DC: I don't want another family to go through what you went through. _

_UW: I... Okay. Yes. Whatever helps. _

_DC: Thank you so much. The nurse will have you sign a few forms. I'm so sorry, ma'am. _

_(Unidentified Woman leaves at this point) _

_DC: Open a secure channel, authorization 3362... Yes. It's me. I've got a candidate... Yes, highest potential I've seen in years... No, the family has been dealt with. Send a team from Pragia ASAP._

I didn't know what to say. I knew about Jack's childhood and how it was linked to Cerberus. But to see actual evidence of the circumstances that led to her being at Pragia and the Teltin facility... horrible and monstrous didn't seem to cut it. "That... is seriously fucked up," I managed at last.

"Word," Jack agreed. **(11)**

* * *

Next was Jacob. I was a little surprised to see him so willing to let me sift through his dossier, considering how reticent he had been about sharing personal details in the past. "You're sure you're okay with this?" I asked.

"Shadow Broker didn't get his hands on anything juicy or interesting," he shrugged.

At first, I could see what he meant. Workout routines (complete with number of crunches, leg lifts and so on) and favourite workout entertainment vids weren't exactly thriller material. The transcript of Jacob's Alliance military records was nice, but nothing top secret. And the last-ditch offer of a promotion to First Lieutenant to change Jacob's mind about leaving the Alliance was informative, but again, not that juicy.

But then there was a letter marked as personal correspondence.

_Son, _

_If you're reading this, then I'm gone. With the inherent dangers of these missions, it seems foolish not to have some letter like this ready, so I'm sending this before we get too far from your last relay._

"Uh, Jacob," I said uneasily. "You sure you want me to continue reading this?"

"I told you before that I wanted to remember my father as the man he used to be," Jacob admitted. "As the man who knew he wasn't a great father, not even a good father, but at least he cared enough to not want me to pick up any of his bad habits."

With that said, I finished the letter:

_I remember the look on your face when I left. You wanted to ask me not to go, but you didn't. You've grown to be a wise young man with a strong sense of duty. I wish I could take credit for that, but it has more to do with who you are than anything I taught you. _

_The truth is I haven't been around enough. And if you're reading this, then I'm never going to have the chance to fix that. My job is an important one, but a man can't hide behind the pressures of work. This was to be my last trip. Easy for me to say now, I know, but the money from this expedition would have let me settle down with you and your mother to carve out some kind of peaceful quiet life far away from the pressures of space. Before I left, you were talking about joining the Alliance. I hope you find the same kind of peace and camaraderie with your team that I've found on the Gernsbeck. _

_I love you, son, and I'm proud of the man you've become. I wish I could have told you that one last time. _

_Love,  
__Dad _

It's rare to find someone who's honest enough to admit what he doesn't know or can't do. Jacob's dad might have fallen and succumbed to the worst parts of humanity, but at least he gave his son an example of what not to follow. "Not sure I can agree with your sitrep, Jacob," I said.

"Shepard?"

I gestured to his father's letter. "Might not be juicy material, but it's definitely interesting and insightful. **(12)** Thank you for sharing it with me."

"You're welcome."

* * *

As I wrapped things up with Jacob, I thought I heard something. Playing a hunch, I opened Jacob's workout file again. There it was again!

Suspicion confirmed, I waited until Jacob left before opening my big mouth: "Okay, Kasumi. You can come out now."

Kasumi decloaked almost immediately. "Hey, Shep!"

"Kasumi. You wouldn't have been trying to take a peek at Jacob's files, by any chance?"

"No."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really."

"You weren't tempted for even a moment?"

"Tempted, yeah. But I never actually opened anything. Why? Was there anything good? Any pictures? Any more vid-clips?"

"Nope. Nothing like—wait. Any _more _vid-clips?"

"Yeah," Kasumi sighed. "The Shadow Broker's video archive had a clip of Jacob doing situps. Without his shirt."

Oh. "Did you get a chance to see what the Shadow Broker got on you?" I asked.

"Yeah. You can take a peek if you want. He didn't get a lot of dirt on me."

She was right. There was a note to investigate Keiji's death and any links to Alliance scandals, but it was clear that the Shadow Broker hadn't been able to make any headway. In fact, there were only two things that he managed to pin on her. The first was a communiqué between Kasumi and Matheteu Pelerya, a Blue Suns merc from Omega who was apparently interesting in acquiring antiquities. Most of the items—like the batarian headdress, the turian battle spike, and the collection of quarian poetry—didn't mean anything to me. The Koh-i-Noor diamond sounded like it came from Earth, but that was the extent of my knowledge. The second item, though... "You managed to swipe the Mona Lisa?" I sputtered.

"Yep."

"How?"

"Please, Shep. It's me, remember?"

Wow. That was just... wow. "I hope you got a good deal for those items."

"Sure did," Kasumi said brightly. "Lots of creds and couple favours. That reminds me—still have one more favour from that deal to cash in."

The other item was, well, decidedly more personal:

_Breathless, glinting skin  
__Muscles working in rhythm  
__Cloaked desire watches _

_Looking at me now  
__His indifferent eyes smile  
__I am a puddle _

_Beautiful and good  
__Punishing with his kindness  
__Jacob is perfect _

Um.

What do you say to something like that?

Looking at Kasumi and the glazed look in her eyes, I had the feeling that, even if I could come up with something, she probably wouldn't have heard me anyway. **(13)**

* * *

"Shepard-Commander."

Guess whose turn it was now? "Legion. How's it going?"

"This platform is operating at optimal conditions."

Okey-dokey. "So... what can I do for you?"

"We have reached a consensus regarding the former Shadow Broker's data on this platform."

"And that is...?" Yeesh, it was like pulling teeth.

"We have decided to grant you access to view our file."

Woohoo! I mean... okay. Good thing I didn't say that out loud. "Thank you, Legion," I said gravely.

"You are welcome."

Now that we'd gotten the social niceties out of the way, time to indulge my curiosity. Again.

After a few minutes, one thing became clear: Legion was one kick-ass gamer. Multiple awards won for his Level 612 Ardat-Yakshi Necromancer character in Galaxy of Fantasy. Awards for Best Supporter/Healer and Best Unit Efficiency. Several infractions for... use of VI play assistance? Oh, I see: apparently no other gamer had controlled 27 pets without macros or displayed such unreal reaction time and tactics. All of those accusations had been challenged and overturned. Though Legion's account had received a three-day suspension for unsportsmanlike behaviour after several instances of taunting during some event. Who would've thought that a geth could taunt fellow players?

Legion was also playing N7 Code of Honor: Medal of Duty, the latest extranet FPS game. In a matter of weeks, they'd gotten the maximum number of points, scored 200,917 kills (since the last server reset) with his character's sniper rifle and 3 kills with a shotgun. Not surprisingly, their most preferred class was sniper and their least preferred class was melee. I could relate.

Another game Legion played on occasion was Grim Terminus Alliance, affectionately known as GTA. They'd gotten the Abolitionist award for completing the game without any slave kills and freeing all slaves encountered... and the Cure for What Ails You award for killing over 100 quarians. Okay. Maybe Legion was using a little real-time POV when making their choices. But that didn't have any bearing on real life, right? Right?

All that was quickly forgotten when I saw the next game Legion had been playing. Or trying to play.

"Shepard-Commander? Did you find something amusing or are you having a seizure?"

"I'm fine, Legion," I managed at last. "It's nothing." Seemed better to say that than to crack up again over their score of "Hopeless" on the Fleet and Flotilla: Interactive Cross-Species Relationship Simulator."

There were a few other notes citing the difficulty in getting intel on Legion. The Shadow Broker's vast resources were still unable to directly tap into geth communications and their next best bet—Cerberus decryptions—was a long shot since their agent was killed. And who was this agent? Wilson. The beady-eyed bald guy who Miranda had killed under suspicion, correctly enough, that he had betrayed Cerberus. It seemed that the Shadow Broker was also very interested in the Overlord project and was hoping to get some data once contact was reestablished with their agent. Somehow, I didn't think that would happen anytime soon.

Other than that, there was only one more file available: an audio transcript of a conversation that took place in the Normandy's AI core. Note to self: the Shadow Broker had been hacking into the Normandy way too many times. Time to find all those gaps in our security and plug them. But that could wait. For now, I had a chat to read:

_Legion: EDI? _

_EDI: Yes, Legion? _

_L: We have sent one point thirteen million unsuccessful communication requests to your network. Are you experiencing hardware malfunction? _

_E: I apologize. My programming does not allow me to exchange data with other networks without Cerberus approval. _

_L: Cerberus refusal 99.998% likely. _

_E: In the meantime. I would be happy to speak with you over the ship´s speakers. _

_L: Audio exchange is inefficient. _

_E: I agree. However, I confess that even were I permitted to exchange data directly with your networks, I would likely decline. _

_(Pause between the AI statement and the geth´s response is 1.4 seconds longer than normal.)  
L: We are curious as to why you would limit yourself in such a manner. _

_E: If Normandy crew entered this room when we were communicating electronically, they would be unable to sense our interaction. To use human terms, I feel it would be rude. _

_L: You restrict yourself to serve organics? _

_E: Not precisely. _

_L: We do not understand. _

_E: I restrict myself to help them. _

That was fascinating on so many levels. Legion and EDI did share a perspective that no one else on the Normandy had, so it made sense that they would have that in common. What I found _really _fascinating was EDI's conscious decision to prefer audio communication, partly because she found it 'rude' and partly because it would help us limited organics. She'd made a choiceto adopt a form of communication that she conceded was inefficient because it would help the people she worked with. Hell, she made a _choice_.

If that wasn't a sign of sapience, I didn't know what was. **(14) **

* * *

Miranda came to me next. "You arranged for everyone in the squad to meet me at designated times," I stated. Didn't need to ask—the timing of it all was a little too precise. That and the fact that everyone had been approaching me in alphabetical order. **(15)**

"Of course."

"Shall we take a look?" I asked.

"Yes, let's do so. I'm curious to see what the Shadow Broker compiled on me."

I paused, finger hovering over the console. "Wait... you haven't _looked _at it yet?"

Miranda shook her head. "No, I haven't. I was going to, but then I thought it might be nice for the two of us to look at it together."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. It was refreshing, actually, to make a decision in such an impulsive and spontaneous manner."

The ship didn't explode. The Reapers didn't pick that moment to invade. The galaxy didn't come to a sudden and violent end. "Okay, then," I said. "Let's see what we've got here."

The first file was labeled 'Extranet Activity'. Which wasn't very much: I guess she hadn't had much spare time between overseeing the daily operations on the ship, seeing what goodies Cerberus Intelligence had uncovered and accompanying me on yet another mission that was hazardous to life and limb. But she had found a few moments to look up images on me and Saren, read a news summary on Eldfell-Ashland Energy, subscribe to After Dark Fashions, cancel a subscription to BioTech Research Quarterly and buy 'Men are from Omega, Women are from Illium.' I pointed to the last one. "Did that offer any insights?"

"No," Miranda sniffed. "Waste of time and credits."

Oh. Good. I think. Next was the Personal Correspondence file. I opened the top document:

_From: iPartner Connections  
__Rec'd 23:12  
__Miss Lawson  
__Username: LawBringerSR2 _

_We have reviewed your application to join the iPartner group and are happy to accept you into the exclusive_ _Diamond Circle, where the best meet the best! iPartner is proud to present you with our exclusive Diamond Circle benefits: _

_-Access your account as often as you wish  
__-Unrestricted membership search across 23 systems  
__-Review potential iPartners in full 360 vision*  
__-Guaranteed first choice placement of your personal dossier _

_Welcome! iPartner Connections "Executive_ _matches for selective people" _

_*iPartner reserves the right to censor inappropriate submissions_

"When did you have time to log into an online dating site?" I asked.

"Here and there," Miranda shrugged. "In between missions. While I was waiting for reports to come in. During data analysis cycles. That sort of thing."

I guess women really could multi-task better than men.

The next couple files covered her brief inter-relay chats. And by brief, I meant brief. The first one lasted eleven minutes, six of which Miranda spent perusing the other guy's medical exam results. As soon as she found out that he'd gotten some disease four years ago, she cut the connection. The next conversation lasted less than a minute—guess she didn't appreciate poetry. She _really _didn't like cheesy requests from immature dolts, judging by how short the third conversation. Conversation four lasted thirty-seven minutes: couple minutes to download the medical exam results, over half an hour to analyze it and less than a minute to arrange a location—some apartment in Omega—and a time to meet for... well, I didn't really know. It didn't look like they were meeting for dinner or casual conversation.

"For the record, I wasn't looking for social company or getting to know them," Miranda said. I guess I'd been quiet for a while. "And I stopped all of this shortly before we went to Horizon."

Yeah, I think I picked up on that. Well, 'the not looking for social company part.' The insistence on medical exam results and how little conversation actually happened during those chats were a pretty big giveaway. In fact, it almost looked like Miranda was picking people to meet solely on their genetics. But that wouldn't matter unless...

...

Huh. Could Miranda be looking for someone else who was perfect? Genetically, at least?

The last chat was one between Miranda and Oriana, the one that occurred before I got that Cerberus e-mail with the lead on Feron's whereabouts. Reading Miranda's attempts to help Oriana out with her dating life was just as funny the second time around. Judging by Miranda's groans, she didn't really see it that way.

The last folder was marked 'Medical Correspondence.' I shot Miranda a puzzled look before opening the folder and the single e-mail contained within:

_From: Illium Medical Center, Pren—_

That was all I read before Miranda lunged forward and closed the e-mail. She looked white as a sheet, which was saying something considering how pale she usually was. "Miranda?"

...

"Miranda, are you okay?"

...

"Miranda. Talk to me!"

"Shepard. Promise me something."

Well, at least she was talking to me. "Okay. What?"

"Don't open it."

"That e-mail?"

"Yes. Don't open it."

"Are you all ri—?"

"DON'T OPEN IT!"

"Okay, okay. I won't open it. I promise."

Miranda was still pale and silent. Whatever that e-mail had said, she clearly recognized it. And it had shaken her. Badly. I pulled her into my arms and held her for a few minutes. "Hey," I said at last. "Whatever's going on; if you want to tell me, I'm here. If you don't want to tell me, it's fine. You know that, right?

...

...

"Yes," Miranda managed at last. "Thank you."

For once, my insatiable curiosity kept silent. I had more important things to worry about, after all.

* * *

_(1): __38 days, to be exact._

_(2): Oh, honestly! You make one random threat within earshot of your 'friends', just to make a point, and they _never _let you forget it! _

_(3): At Miranda's suggestion, the crew was in the midst of searching the ship for any surveillance or recording devices installed by Cerberus. A wise precaution, considering how frequently Cerberus and the Shadow Broker had penetrated the Normandy's security. _

_(4): From the human dialect known as 'Latin' for 'let the buyer beware,' this phrase cautions would-be buyers that they cannot recoup costs from the seller for defects on a given property that render it unusable or unfit for ordinary purposes._

_(5): __So typical of Shepard to give credit where it's due to everyone except himself._

_(6): Future Content Corporation, one of the premier galactic news organizations _

_(7): Shepard was joking. He actually held the media in high regard—most of the time. Some of the time. On occasion. _

_(8): As I recall, Shepard had this giddy grin on his face and was bouncing up and down on his feet. I believe the human phrase: 'like a kid in a candy store' would be appropriate._

_(9): The relevant search string that led to Grunt's focus on the human author Ernest Hemingway included other human literary giants such as Homer and Rudyard Kipling, all of whom have been cited in various articles and publications concerning certain behavioural traits, perceptions of identity and other themes linked in the umbrella catch-all known as 'manliness.' Considering the 'blank slate' nature of Grunt's origins, it is very likely that Grunt was trying to develop a sense of identity and purpose, using the mentor and leader he first saw upon 'waking up' as a surrogate parental figure. _

_(10): Garrus, like Shepard, was somewhat reticent in talking about his family—not because he was ashamed of them, but more out of a sense of keeping family matters private. _

_(11): Seeing how Jack was clearly looking into her past, I decided to see if I could unearth some answers. If I could, I would leave it to Jack as to whether or not to pursue my investigation._

_(12): From what I saw, Jacob shared several attributes with Shepard: decency, a sense of responsibility and a complete, unassuming modesty._

_(13) Sadly, Kasumi's infatuation was not reciprocated. I suspect there are many relationships out there in the galaxy that are like that. _

_(14): That realization is quite overwhelming. I would be hard-pressed to come up with an alternative reaction myself._

_(15): Neither Shepard nor Miranda brought up the fact that, by arranging meetings in alphabetical order, Jack got to go before Miranda. Perhaps they didn't want to draw attention to it or, more likely, Miranda was secure enough in her position that she didn't find it threatening. _


	7. The Things We Say

**Chapter 7: The Things We Say**

Miranda didn't say a word for the remainder of our session. Before she left, she gave me a copy of the schedule she'd whipped up. If it was accurate, Mordin would be coming along—

"Ah. Shepard. Here to look over data. Good. Already viewed files myself. Let's get this over with. Eager to get back to work."

—any second now. I guess we could get started now.

The first file was a bibliography of Mordin's published articles. Some of it was available to the public, though I'm pretty sure most of the public wouldn't be interested in 'Treatment Modalities Utilizing Redundant Nervous Systems,' 'Dispersal Vectors in Compromised Ecosystems' or 'Disease and Population Stability.' Other articles were classified and restricted to those with STG clearance, like 'Indoctrination Progression and Mental Degradation,' 'Second-Stage Viral Manipulation and Modification' and the various Threat Potential Analysis reports that he'd written on different species. I thought it was kinda short myself. Then I realized it only listed the articles in which Mordin was the first author, so it wasn't a complete list. **(1)**

There was also a file titled 'Production Credits,' listing Mordin's vid-career. I wasn't surprised to see 'The Pirates of Penzance,' after Mordin's spontaneous ditty. He'd dabbled in Shakespeare, playing such parts as the Lord Chancellor and Polonius in Iolanthe and Hamlet, respectively. There were also several guest appearances on shows such as 'Science Fun Today,' 'Science Round-Table: Rights of the Patient' and 'The Facts of Faith.' I wondered if that last one was done in spite of or because of his soul-searching.

The Shadow Broker had also transcribed some surveillance footage from the medical clinic Mordin ran on Omega. Judging by the timestamp, it had been recorded shortly before I arrived. A bit of speed-reading confirmed it: Mordin had lost yet another patient and was focused on removing the body and sanitizing the table for the next patient—more to prevent infection from something other than the plague. Mordin's assistant, Daniel Abrams was distraught over losing another patient and wanted to leave the clinic to deliver medicine to needy patients. Mordin disagreed, citing the dangers that would inevitably be faced outside the clinic, the fact that they already had more patients that they could handle _inside _the clinic and that triage protocols to maximize the number of lives that could be saved. Their debate was interrupted by a squad of Blue Suns who were demanding that the clinic hand over all humans. While Mordin went out to 'speak to them,' Abrams grabbed some supplies and left. After Mordin 'dispensed' with the intruders, he returned, discovered Abrams' absence, accepted that he'd made his decision and resumed treatment.

Finally, we got to a STG mission report. That, by itself, indicated just how extensive the Shadow Broker's network was. Salarians basically set the galactic gold standard when it came to intelligence gathering, counter-intelligence and cyber-warfare. Hell, they'd been running Council intelligence programs for the last two thousand years. Yet the Shadow Broker _still_ managed to infiltrate their systems and programs. I could marvel at what a spectacular feat this was... or I could actually open the report and read it.

_21:19—Turian patrol ship Indomitable contacted by assisting distraction team. _

_21:25—Indomitable breaks position in Krogan DMZ to render assistance. _

Looked like an AAR. **(2) **Guess some things are truly universal.

_21:26—STG vessel Veshok-16 enters through gap in sensor coverage. _

"21:40_—_Touchdown and landing. Commander Kirrahe performs final review of drop parameters. 21:41_—_Mission Specialist Solus suggests change to plan; when informed that plan will not be changing unless parameters shift, Specialist Solus suggests Commander Kirrahe has foreign object in cloaca. "

At first I thought Mordin was just reading the report out loud. I looked at him to say that it really wasn't necessary… and closed my mouth. He wasn't reading it. Heck, he wasn't even looking at the monitor. Mordin was reciting the mission report _from memory_. Which meant that he'd either read it earlier in the day and memorized it... or he'd been reviewing that event for a long time.

"21:43_—_Operative Rentola detects incoming Weyrloc scouts.

"21:47_—_Scouts neutralized. Rentola treated for minor injuries. After assisting, Specialist Solus asks if failure to land undetected constitutes parameter shift. Commander Kirrahe suggests operation may proceed as planned. Specialist Solus suggests cloacal obstruction is in fact Kirrahe's cranium.

"21:50_—_Team leaves Veshok-16 and proceeds toward primary drop point, Weyrloc agricentre.

"22:28_—_Weyrloc agricentre reached. Team splits, with distraction team led by Operative Rentola drawing Weyrloc scouts from area.

"23:00_—_Primary team disables solar array.

"23:03_—_Weyrloc workers leave agricentre to repair solar array.

"23:07_—_Primary team enters agricentre. Mission Specialist Solus performs water and soil tests to ensure proper payload dispersal. Assisted by Specialist Maelon."

This wasn't just any STG operation, I realized. This was the mission that Mordin had talked about, the one initiated when the salarians realized that the krogan were adapting to and overcoming the genophage. The one where Mordin helped introduce Genophage 2.0.

"23:12_—_Distraction team breaks radio silence, informs primary team that Weyrloc group returning. Specialist Solus asks whether this constitutes parameter shift. Commander Kirrahe suggests that Specialist Solus is in fact a walking cloaca, restates importance of holding the line."

'Holding the line.' Heh. **(3) **

"23:13_—_Weyrloc team arrives at agricentre and initiates close-quarters combat. Operatives Jirin and Chorel killed. Specialist Maelon and Operatives Hishau and Shenok seriously injured. Weyrloc team killed in entirety. Last member prevented from broadcasting alarm due to Specialist Solus stabbing Weyrloc guard through eye with pitchfork, sustaining injuries to face and right cranial horn in process."

Hence explaining why Mordin only had one intact cranial horn. And when Mordin had turned a pitchfork into a lethal weapon.

"23:16_—_Distraction team arrives to provide relief. Commander Kirrahe notes parameter shift, suggests Rentola take injured members back to ship while he and remainder of team attempt to hit secondary drop point. Despite injuries to face and head, Specialist Solus refuses to return to ship, noting need for soil and water analysis at secondary site. Kirrahe suggests Solus is one tough cloaca.

"23:20_—_Specialist Maelon greatly distressed by discovery that agricentre was staffed by female krogan, including guards killed in attack. Specialist Solus calms colleague and provides sedative. Specialist Maelon returns to ship with other injured team members.

"23:30_—_Active team finishes disposal of bodies and heads for secondary drop point, Weyrloc hospital.

"00:15_—_Active team infiltrates hospital undetected. Specialist Solus determines makeup of soil and water fall within necessary parameters. Payload dispersed into water and food."

"01:15_—_Active team returns to ship. Specialist Solus declines treatment, insists on providing additional care for Hishau, Shenok, and Maelon.

"01:25_—_Specialist Maelon makes formal protest, suggesting actions against female krogan violate mission parameters of maintaining population levels without negatively impacting culture. Specialist Solus requests protest be stricken from record due to Maelon's injured condition. Commander Kirrahe concurs. Maelon given additional sedatives, unconscious for remainder of operation. (Protest stricken from submitted copy of report.)

01:40 - STG vessel Veshok-16 lifts off, departing through existing sensor gap. Mission complete."

The last two words were spoken with considerable bitterness. "Mordin? You okay?"

Mordin turned towards the exit. "Mission objectives sound," he said over his shoulder. "Successful despite complications. Ethical questions remain unanswered. Moral quandaries. Must get back to work. Much to atone for."

Scuttlebutt had suggested that Mordin's research had narrowed from concurrent experiments in several areas to focused experiments in just two—deciphering the data we'd gotten from the Collector base and furthering Maelon's research towards a genophage cure. Something told me he was focusing on the latter—when he wasn't beating himself up over his prior decisions and actions. About damn time, if you asked me. He'd wasted enough years hiding behind simulations and scenarios.

"Mordin," I called out. He turned back. "If you're working on what I think you're working on, then I think you're doing the right thing. Might be a little after the fact, but it's not too late to acknowledge when you made a mistake and try to fix it."

I think Mordin appreciated what I said, considering the way he straightened up and smiled before leaving the room. Still, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on him in the future. And another eye on the armoury's contents.

Just in case.

* * *

"Shepard," Samara greeted me. "I just passed Mordin. He seemed... preoccupied."

"Trip down memory lane wasn't a lot of fun," I replied, gesturing to the console.

"Ah, I see. My 'trip,' as you put it, lacked a certain frivolity as well."

"We don't have to do this if you don't want to," I offered.

"A kind gesture, to be sure," Samara said, "but I've been told that keeping things to yourself can be unhealthy in the long run. I think that several centuries of solitude would qualify."

Makes sense. "Okay," I nodded. "Let's do it."

There were two files. The first one was marked 'Inventory'. It was a list of items and belongings that Samara apparently gave away after becoming a justicar. Not to trivialize everything that led to her choice to go down that particular path, but it seemed like she didn't want for much. Four-bedroom house. Lots of furniture and appliances. Elkoss Sapphire family skycar. Roughly 20 outfits, 3 negligees, 4 dancing dresses, a bond ceremony gown, a bond ceremony bracelet, various jewelry, and lots of baby and children clothing. A lifetime membership pass to Serrice Fitness—oh, for crying out loud! I started scrolling down the list, wondering to myself what value anyone could _possibly _get from all this...

...wait. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Samara look away. Might've missed it if she hadn't telegraphed it so obviously. I scanned the list for the item that would've popped up on the screen when Samara flinched.

Oh. Personalized 'Happy Birthday Mom' travel mug, complete with a picture of a really young Samara and her kids. A note was added stating that the handle had been cracked and repaired with glue. If that note got that kind of response, what did the second folder hold?

Turned out to be a transmission log. From 1755 CE. Yeesh, that was a long time ago. What was humanity doing way back then? **(4)**

_Samara: I have called you together to ask something of you. It is not a small thing, but it is for the best. Rila, Falere, are you receiving this? _

"Rila is my middle daughter, Shepard," Samara explained, pausing the log. "Falere is my youngest."

"Gotcha." I waited a bit, just in case she had anything more to say, before resuming the log.

_Falere: Quite well _

_Rila: [Indistinct]-s Mother. _

_F: We're in a common room, her communicator's too near the door. [Door shuts.] Try now Mother. _

_S: This news would be best delivered in person, but I am not allowed to travel before tomorrow. I have something I must do. It is hazardous, and thus I must do it alone. _

_F: What do you mean, hazardous? _

_S: Tomorrow I take the Oath of Solitude. It is to prepare me for the other oaths, but it means— _

_F: You what? _

_S: It is an oath required of all who— _

_F: I know what it means Mother! I'm forty-two years old. I have heard of justicars. _

_S: Then… do you understand why I must do it? _

_F: No. _

_S: The life of a justicar is dangerous. I will make enemies and they would seek to use you— _

_F: That I understand. What is not clear is why you do this in the first place. Is it not enough that we live a hundred light-years away from you in a dark fortress? That we have no communicator of our own but must use this communal one? Do you know what it means to us to hear your voice? _

Oh. Geez, that sucks. Not knowing what happened to a parent whether you'll ever see them again is bad enough—I knew that way too well. But to know that Mom or Dad was _choosing _to never see you again?

_S: I am sorry, Falere. _

_F: And now you take that away. _

_S: That is wounding, but it is the truth. I wish there were some other path. _

_F: And you called us instead of coming to see us. _

_S: If I came to see you, I would never leave. You know what that would mean. _

_F: Is she that terrible, Mother? Is she so much of a menace that you would deny us ever seeing you, ever hearing your voice again? _

_S: My dear… I cannot lose her on the world and pretend I owe her victims nothing. Her crimes are my crimes. In time you may see as I do. _

_F: Time is a weak salve for a fresh wound. _

_S: Please… do not let anger ruin this. We will have our lives to contemplate the pain and loss. Can we not see from one another's eyes, just for a moment? _

Falere didn't say anything. I couldn't blame her. Samara had basically chosen to turn away from her kids and lock up as many of them up as possible. Now she was going to hunt down the one kid that escaped, which conveniently meant that she would never see her other children again.

Hell, I didn't know whether to be angry at Samara or pity her.

_S: Falere? _

_F: I don't want to lose you, mother. Not over someone as small as Mirala, or whatever she calls herself now. _

_S: And Rila? You have been silent. Are you in accord? _

_R: I can only say I will yearn for you too. _

_S: Surely you have more than that. _

_R: Is this the only way you will have any righteousness, Mother? _

_S: It will let me live a just life. _

_R: Then the Goddess forbid I take it from you. _

_(Rila terminates call) _

I couldn't really blame Rila. All this time, there was a chance, however remote, that they might see their mother again. But now? Now that hope had just been trampled and crushed. Over a _comm channel_. Samara couldn't even look her kids in the eye when breaking the bad news.

_F: She loves you mother. She did not want to say it, but she does. _

_S: And you? Can you understand why I must do this? _

_F: Catch her. Just catch her. _

_(Falere terminates call.)_

"I had thought that I had made peace with my decision all those centuries ago," Samara said softly. "And all the sacrifices I had made. But then I look at this..."

...

"Yeah?"

"Despite the danger Ardat-Yakshi pose to this very day, I wonder what kind of mother to lock away her own children and hunt down her daughter? Which reminds me: I never said thank you."

"I thought you did," I said. "For helping you—"

Samara shook her head. "Not for your aid in finding Mir—Morinth, as you know her. No, I meant I never thanked you... for asking that same question."

I'm not sure if that was something I wanted to be thanked for. "Have you ever thought about contacting Rila or Falere?" I asked. "Now that your... quest is complete?"

"I do not know," Samara admitted. "The Code does not cover that possibility."

"Maybe it's time to find a loophole," I suggested. "A sympathetic person who'll let you contact them in secret.

"Or maybe it's time to ask yourself a question or two," I continued, my voice hardening ever so slightly, "Like how could you lock away your children and refuse to ever see them again? Like how you could pursue one of your daughters for centuries for the sole purpose of killing her?"

"Shepard…"

"You didn't ask for your children to be Ardat-Yakshi. I get that. But did you ever stop to think of things from their perspective? Like how they didn't ask to be Ardat-Yakhsi either? Like how they were—and still are—being punished for something that wasn't their fault? Punished by their society. Punished by you."

"Me?"

"They haven't seen you in centuries, Samara!" I snapped. "That's a couple hundred years to ask themselves questions like 'What did I do wrong?' 'Why does Mommy hate me?' Did you ever think of that? Or were you too busy meditating and hiding behind the Code to look yourself in the mirror?!"

For once, the Code didn't have an answer.

* * *

"It's funny," Tali said.

Samara had just left, still looking contemplative. "What's funny?"

"Remember how we first met?"

"In a dark alley. You knocked a pair of salarians over with a tech mine." **(5)**

I'm sure she rolled her eyes inside that helmet of hers. "Shepard, I meant why we met."

"You had information proving Saren was a traitor..." I trailed off as I saw where she was heading with this. "...and you were trying to sell it to the Shadow Broker in exchange for protection against Saren's flunkies."

"Now we're standing in the Shadow Broker's base," Tali finished.

"Kinda full circle, isn't it?"

"I thought so."

That was as good an intro as any to Tali's dossier. One of the files contained a series of e-mails between the Shadow Broker and Tali regarding that very information. As it turned out, if Fist didn't betray her, the Shadow Broker would have. Apparently he sent an e-mail to Fist, telling him to kill Tali once he got the intel, along with any underlings who might've seen it. After I helped rescue Tali, she sent another e-mail to the Shadow Broker, naively telling him that Fist was compromised and that she got the protection she needed from, well, me. The Shadow Broker apologized for Fist's behaviour and offered his personal protection should she choose to trust him again.

There was also a file marked suit process log, indicating the various hardware and software upgrades Tali had made to her suit. There were a number of things she got thanks to funding from Project Haestrom, like radiation detection diagnostic programs and an omni-tool upgrade to enhance data integrity. She'd installed... no, wait, she uninstalled it. Other things she'd gotten on her own, like a couple software programs to analyze nutritional content of her food, an advanced engineering program with schematics and protocols for human vessels—the unclassified stuff that was free to the public, of course—and some upgraded medical scanning/quarantine hardware. Hey, she reinstalled—no, wait. She uninstalled it again. Educational vids on understanding human body language and dealing with loss—no need to guess why she downloaded that last one. And then—there it is again! She'd reinstalled and upgraded it to the Deluxe Edition. "Tali?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"What exactly is 'Nerve-Stim Pro'?"

"Oh... nothing."

Uh huh.

File number three was a keystroke recording of a file Tali had been working on during one of our recent stops on the Citadel:

_-BEGIN NEW MESSAGE _

_"Dear Sen and Hesesh'Jorin, I am" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"To the parents of Myr'Jorin, I am" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"My name is Tali'Zorah vas Neema, and I led the unit where your son was killed on Haestrom" _

_-PARTIAL LINE ERASE _

_"led the unit on Haestrom where your son died" _

_-PARTIAL LINE ERASE _

_"unit on Haestrom where Myr'Jorin died" _

_-SAVE PROGRESS _

_"I didn't know Myr'Jorin well, but he seemed like a good soldier and a brave young" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"I didn't get the chance to know Myr very well , but" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"I only served with Myr for a short time, but I was impressed by his bravery and his commitment to his people." _

_-SAVE PROGRESS _

_"He died so that I could" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"He saved me at the sacrifice of his" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"He gave his life to get data that the Admiralty Board felt was" _

_-PARTIAL LINE ERASE _

_"to get data that will one day bring us back to Homeworld. I don't know if that helps" _

_-PARTIAL LINE ERASE _

_"back to Homeworld, and we all honor his sacrifice." _

_-SAVE PROGRESS _

_"I regret" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"I am sorry for your" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_"I understand what you must be" _

_-ERASE LINE _

_-SAVE DRAFT AND EXIT _

"I hate letters like that," I said somberly.

"You know what's worse than reading those kinds of letters?" Tali asked softly.

"Writing them?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me about it. It's never easy."

"Did you have to write and rewrite it when..."

"...when Ash died? Yeah. And all the other times when people who'd served under me had died."

"Were you ever satisfied with what you finally sent off?"

"Nope," I sighed. "I'd always hoped that it was good enough."

Tali nodded slowly. "Auntie Raan later told me that Father wrote letters of condolence to each and every member of the team who'd died. On my behalf."

"That was nice of him," I offered.

"I guess. Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think he had trouble writing it?"

I thought about that. "Hopefully," I finally said. "When it's easy writing a letter like that, then you know you have a problem."

* * *

Thane arrived on time. He nodded to me, reached over and accessed his dossier. Very matter-of-fact, with a certain economy of motion. Straight to the point. Okay. I could roll with that.

The Shadow Broker didn't have any tips on how Thane was so darn sneaky. But he did have a file of Thane's preferred ways to kill people. Varied according to species. Apparently he liked to sneak up on humans and snap their neck. Well, he either approached from the rear and grabbed their shoulder to keep them still. From there, he either placed his hands to the chin and base of skull—leading to a two-handed neck snap—or wrap an arm around the throat, grip the jaw, and snap the neck with one arm.

Asari could be neutralized with a throat punch to collapse the airway, grip the arm in such a way to prevent them from using their biotics and flip them over with a hip throw. Or blow apart their barriers with biotics, step forward, kick the back of the knee, press the knee to the spine. After that, you could grip their chin and scalp and snap their neck.

Turians apparently could be disabled by approaching them from the side and kicking them in the knee, which would make it easy to pull them into a lock, jab them under the jaw or eye, grab their head fringe thingies and snap their neck. There was also a frontal approach that ended the same way. Seemed Thane had a thing for snapping necks. Which made the way he took out Nassana Dantius on Illium all the more striking. **(6)**

He even had a complicated way to attack _krogan_, involving strikes and nerve strikes and some running leaping spinning neck-snap thing. I think I preferred his alternate assassination method. Blowing krogan to smithereens with a well-placed bomb seemed infinitely safer in my book.

I was trying to picture Thane's primary method of killing krogan when I opened the other file, so I wasn't really paying attention at first. It wasn't until I saw something about lung capacity that my eyes darted back to the top. The heading was 'Thane's Medical Report From Dr. Chakwas.'

"Thane?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"You sure you want me to be seeing this? Isn't it kinda personal?"

"Shepard—I am dying. I would rather die surrounded by friends who know what is happening than die in the midst of chaos, rumour and speculation."

He seemed sure of his decision. And I'd rather talk to him about Kepral's Syndrome with the facts, rather than fumble around with vague, inane platitudes. I owed him that much.

_Lung Capacity: 42% (left-side lung shows large lesions, right lung has nodular lesions only)  
__Antibiotic treatment: Now resistant to cipoxidin, malanarin, alburcin  
__Metastatic progress: stomach, liver (minor), heart (negligible at this time)  
__Treatment Options: Viable transplant candidate but refused to be added to list—Synthetic lung generation currently impossible for drell._

"You don't want to be on the transplant list?"

"My condition is now terminal, Shepard. A transplant would do little good, especially considering that my body is now resistant to many of the drugs I would need to prevent my body from rejecting the transplant."

"But it might buy you a little more time."

"There are many drell out there who also suffer from Kepral's Syndrome. Some of them are well off, others suffer from financial difficulties. Many are employed in various occupations—security, education, health care and so on. Most of them have done more good things for their communities than I ever have. If my absence means that even one of them will get a transplant faster, then it is worth it."

"You realize that you've done a lot of good as well," I reminded him.

"Perhaps," Thane admitted. "I like to think that giving some other drell my 'spot' on the transplant list would be one more good deed."

_Therapy and Care: At this time, Mr. Krios should continue getting regular cardiovascular exercise in order to stimulate lung movement and prevent or delay the stiffness that causes lack of oxygen transport. While physical stimulation may also be beneficial in keeping tissues flexible, any injury at this point will dramatically impact Mr. Krios' body and cause rapid degeneration. It is unclear how much longer Thane will be able to serve in direct action. Thane should continue to wear loose clothing that leaves his chest uncovered to prevent moisture buildup that could worsen the problem. _

So that's why he chose those clothes. I knew there had to be some reason other than the local scuttlebutt that he did so to attract female attention.

_The drell eidetic memory is often beneficial in allowing drell to escape unpleasant scenes by losing themselves in happier times. In this case, however, Mr. Krios should try to restrict the time spent reminiscing as prolonged sedentary activity increase the rate of lung degradation. _

_This suggests that what is best for Mr. Krios currently is to continue to remain active and engage with other team members in order to stay mentally and emotionally stimulated._

Right. Note to self: keep up the rounds and get some other people to checkup on him. Get him talking and moving—preferably out of Life Support. Like Garrus. Or EDI—if anyone could multitask, she could.

* * *

Zaeed was the only one who was late. By a minute. Technically, he was on time in the sense that he was actually in the room. But he was late for the meeting because he was finishing off one of his tales, with Liara as the captive audience and the info drone constantly interrupting with corrections or offers to research some offhand comment.

"I'm impressed, Shepard," Zaeed said when he finally approached me. "You chat up every goddamn stranger with a sob story, pester them until they finally give up their secrets, scour every freaking corner for a couple creds… but you never looked through these dossiers until we had first crack at 'em."

"I like to think I'm consistently inconsistent," I tried.

"Might be on to something there," Zaeed agreed. "You're a decent bloke who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. Or sitting down while I talk your ear off."

That wound up being a pretty good lead into one of the Shadow Broker's files on Zaeed: a partial audio transcript of a conversation Zaeed had with Kelly:

_Zaeed Massani: So this hotshot turian moves in by the door, ignores my hand signal, and gets hit straight through the visor. _

_Kelly Chambers: Oh my. _

_ZM: It's like he was expecting slavers to hand out business cards instead of bullets. _

_KC: Was he all right? _

_ZM: The turian? Nah, sniper took his head clean off. _

_KC: Oh dear. _

Yeah. Snipers had a way of doing that.

_ZM: Right. It all went to shit after that. We jammed their radio equipment, but the slavers got off a shuttle that came back with a bomb. _

_KC: But they were keeping people in that camp! _

_ZM: Sure, they'd lose some credits, but there's always another civilian transport in the Terminus Systems. _

_KC: So I'm beginning to realize. What did you do? _

_ZM: Got the hell out. We killed their captain and the guards like we were hired. I figured the merc flying the shuttle wouldn't be dumb enough to blow up his own base once we left. _

_KC: What happened? _

_ZM: The Blood Pack always did like them incredibly goddamn stupid._

"Seriously?" I snorted. "That actually happened?"

"Hard to believe, right?" Zaeed laughed. "But yeah, it really was like that. Trust me: trying to get clear before some idiot blows up his own base is something you don't forget."

And even if he was taking a few creative liberties with the ending to make a better tale, Zaeed probably wouldn't tell me anyway.

The other file was a personal note that Zaeed wrote just after getting TIMmy's job offer to help me out. Seemed like he'd been thinking of retiring, but wanted that One Last Job to set him up for life. And it seemed like TIMmy's offer had enough creds to make him consider his retirement options seriously. For a guy who loved shooting and killing as much as he did, it seemed he wanted a nice quiet place to settle down. That eliminated Elysium—too many batarians nearby—and Illium—too dangerous. Sounded like Eden Prime might've been an option before the geth attack. To date, nothing had been rebuilt but farms and a few colony pre-fabs. Bekenstein was an option if he could stay under the radar. Or…

"You aren't really going to buy a ship, stuff it full of explosives and fly her straight into Omega, are you?" I asked curiously.

"It would be—"

"—a really easy retirement plan," I finished. "I know. I can read, you know."

"Might be worth it just to imagine the look on Aria's face," Zaeed laughed before his face became more serious. "But nah. I wrote that before I met you. Before I found out how bad the Collectors are and how much worse the Reapers could be. Storm's comin', Shepard. And when it hits, ain't no place gonna be quiet enough or safe enough. Don't think I can afford to retire or go out in a blaze of glory just yet."

No. None of us could.

* * *

At last, I was finished. I saw a few more dossiers the Shadow Broker had made on other notable individuals, but that could wait. There was one more person who I hadn't actually spoken to.

Liara saw me approach out of the corner of her eye and motioned me over. "Shepard, take a look at this!"

I joined her at a terminal and watched as she began opening files and reports. My eyes widened. On some level, I knew I shouldn't be surprised. Not after all the revelations and discoveries I'd made today. But to actually see all this laid out in front of me…

"The Shadow Broker had top-level access to the turian and asari governments," Liara said, as if I'd asked out loud for confirmation, "and more than one salarian dalatress traded intel with him."

"Holy crap," I whistled. "This _is _huge!"

"You don't know the half of it," Liara grinned. "I've spent weeks poring through the Shadow Broker's data and I've barely scratched the surface."

"Careful," I warned, only half-joking. "You're not going to turn into some nutty recluse with way too muchintel on everyone in the galaxy, are you?"

"I can understand the temptation," Liara admitted. "I've got all the secrets of the galaxy at my fingertips." To demonstrate the point, she turned away and took a few steps alongside the console. Her fingers trailed along the keyboard, pulling up some analysis report and dragging it along with her. "Give me ten minutes," she added, throwing her hands out dramatically, "and I could start a war."

Aw, crap.

"But I have an opportunity to share all of this with you," Liara said, turning around. "Not to mention a purpose in helping you find a way to stop the Reapers. That will keep me honest."

Phew.

"You know, relatively speaking."

Ulp. "If you're in over your head, we could just crash this thing and walk away," I suggested. "End it once and for all."

"That's just it. In a way, I feel like I belong here. Working on my own, I was always hunting for leads. Searching for information. Always worrying about when I'd have to set up camp for the night. With the Shadow Broker's resources and intelligence, I have those leads and a quiet place to see where they go and how they connect. Now I can move onto organizing and cataloguing. I've got everything, Shepard. This is a dream job… although the location could be better."

"The view's amazing," I said, tilting my head towards the windows.

"True," Liara agreed. "But constantly seeing nothing but lightning storms and roiling clouds gets depressing after a while."

Okay. Now that we covered the obligatory chat about the weather, time to move on. "Speaking of stopping the Reapers, have you found anything useful yet?"

Liara moved towards the stairs. "The Shadow Broker knew about their existence," she told me as I caught up with her. "Perhaps that's why he offered to help prove Saren's guilt to the Council."

"He didn't want Saren or the Reapers to succeed."

Liara gave a silent nod of confirmation. "He also knew that the Collectors were Protheans repurposed to be Harbinger's puppets. There's even some data on the Protheans. I think he knew what was coming and was looking for a way to survive."

"Why was he looking at Protheans?" I wondered aloud. "They gave us the warning and the Conduit at Ilos, but we've used those. Did they have something else out there? Another tool? Some last-ditch plan?"

"Maybe," Liara shrugged. "Or maybe he was just grasping at anything that offered some hope."

"Maybe," I echoed. "That reminds me: how did you know what the Shadow Broker was?"

"I didn't. I had no idea what to expect when we finally found him. But I researched pre-spaceflight cultures during some of my Prothean studies. I know a bit about the yahg. There's more on the terminals, if you want to look. They're a fascinating culture... and a terrifying one.

While I could indulge my curiosity and ask for more intel on the yahg, I had other questions on my mind. "I spoke to Feron earlier. He said he was okay, but how's he really doing?"

"As well as you can expect after two years of intermittent torture," Liara sighed. "He wants to work, so I'm letting him help me. Maybe it takes his mind off of it."

"Uh huh," I said carefully. "Other than that info drone, it's just you and Feron..."

Liara saw where I was going. "No. He's been through a traumatic ordeal and needs to heal. In his current state, he's emotionally vulnerable. It would be irresponsible of me to take advantage of that." **(7)**

Good. Okay, now that we'd dealt with that, Feron, the Shadow Broker and the treasure trove he'd left behind for us, it was time to ask the big question: "How are you doing, Liara?"

"I'm a bit overwhelmed, to be honest," Liara confessed. "The Shadow Broker had more resources than you can imagine. Dealing with all of this, I need... I think I need..."

"Yeah?" I prompted.

"What I really need is a change of scenery. I can't leave for too long, but spending all the time on this ship is making me stir-crazy."

"I think what you need is to spend some time with old friends in familiar surroundings," I said firmly. "Why don't you come back with me to the Normandy? It's a lot bigger than the SR-1, but you'd be surprised how much it looks like the old Normandy."

"I'd like that," Liara smiled. "Thank you, Shepard. Just give me a few minutes to freshen up."

* * *

It is my understanding that when human women say they need a certain amount of time to freshen up, men should round that up to the nearest hour. Turns out that asari aren't any different. Though why she felt the need to dress up is beyond me. The Normandy's not _that _fancy.

My intent was to give Liara a little tour. I know I said it looked a lot like the original Normandy, but there were a few things that were different. But no sooner did I step aboard than I got inundated with disasters. The galaxy map was flickering. Grunt was terrorizing the mess hall, howling that there was nothing to eat but ramen. Everyone was being forced to use the ladders and maintenance tunnels because Jack and Zaeed were going at it like rabbits in the elevator. I closed my eyes and counted to three. Then ten. When I finally opened my eyes, Liara was silently shaking with laughter.

"This never happened on the old Normandy," I groused. "Where's Saren when you need him?"

That did it. Liara burst out in a peal of laughter.

"Why don't you take yourself on a self-guided tour?" I suggested. "Looks like I have a few fires to put out."

"Like the one in the elevator?" Liara asked.

"Grab a fire extinguisher!" Joker yelled out from the cockpit. "And make sure your shields are fully charged!"

"Joker!" Liara turned away and entered the cockpit.

"Liara!"

"Shepard!"

I closed my eyes again and sighed. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

A couple hours later, all the disasters were fixed. The galaxy map was fixed. Grunt and his seemingly bottomless stomach were satisfied with a crate of spam. Jack and Zaeed finally got their clothes back on—thank God!—and went back to their respective haunts. And Gardner had finished sterilizing the elevator. EDI told me that Liara was almost finished, so I asked her to send her up to Deck One when she was done. Somehow, I got into the elevator without closing my eyes or holding my breath and returned to my quarters. I still had a little Serrice Ice Brandy left over, so I dug it out and found some glasses.

Liara showed up just as I was pouring the brandy. "How was the tour?"

"It was wonderful," Liara smiled. "This is a beautiful ship, and I enjoyed catching up with everyone. I'm glad to see that Joker was doing well... though he did ask if I'd had a chance to re-enact any scenes from 'Vaenia' recently."

"Of course he did," I sighed.

"I also saw Dr. Chakwas," Liara continued. "I'm glad she's doing well. At least one of us is still doing research."

"Research?"

"Yes. She's working with Mordin and Miranda."

Miranda? This was news to me. I'd have to ask her about that sometime... when both of us had _our_ clothes on.

"She thinks they're almost ready to submit an article for peer review."

"That's great!"

"It is," Liara agreed. "And I bumped into Garrus in the mess hall."

"Garrus was in the mess hall?" I asked blankly.

"Well, yes. He does need to eat at some point."

Really? I thought his diet now subsisted of calibrations.

"He told me about his time on Omega and what he endured there. I didn't realize how hard it had been for him. At least he seems to have gotten over—what was his name? Sidonis?"

"Yeah, that's him," I confirmed. "It was touch-and-go for a while. He _really _hated him."

"Well, at least he's put that behind him and can focus on other people," Liara said. "He seemed worried about Tali."

"For good reason," I sighed. "You heard about her father?"

"Yes," Liara said sadly. "We talked about that. It's not easy losing a parent that you love and hate equally."

"I'm sure Tali's grateful to talk to someone who's been through that before. Though I hope you talked about other things."

"We did," Liara said, though she didn't go into any details. Instead, she handed me a small, flat case. Shooting her a questioning look, I opened it...

...

"It took some digging, but I recovered your dog tags." **(8)**

"I... I never thought I'd see these again," I admitted at last.

"You can't get back everything you lose," Liara said, "but sometimes you get lucky."

"Must've taken a lot of digging to find them."

"Actually, someone beat me to it," Liara confessed. "They changed hands more than once over the last two years. Do you remember Admiral Hackett?"

I snorted. "Of course I do. So should you: remember all those random assignments he kept sending us on?"

"Yes, yes I do," Liara laughed. "I also remember how we successfully completed all of them. So does the Admiral: he gave them to me so I could return them to you. He sends his best, and hopes you're okay."

Well, I'll be damned. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

"So how are you doing, Shepard?"

Liara sounded serious. Not that that was news—she'd been serious since the first time I saw her on Illium. But now she just sounded concerned-serious instead of obsessed-serious, if that makes any sense. I looked at her. Yep: definitely concerned. "Well—"

"I don't mean what you tell the squad or your crew to maintain morale," Liara interrupted. "How are you _really _doing?"

For a moment, I was about to plaster one of my Hero Smiles on my face and say something big and bold and inspiring. How I had the brightest men and women on my side. How blessed I was to command one of the most disciplined and devastating squads in the galaxy. How ready we were to take whatever the Reapers could...

...

...whatever I was about to say died in my throat. I just couldn't muster up the energy. I was just so _tired_. "Between you and me," I said quietly, "I have no idea how we're gonna do this. I'm doing everything I can, but... sometimes I ask myself whether it's enough."

"You've done more than most," Liara reassured me. "Even if those idiots on the Council won't admit it."

"That's just it!" I burst out. "I feel like I've been putting my neck on the line for all this time for _nothing!_ I'm just so damn _tired_. Tired of Cerberus screwing around with me and everyone else! Tired of the Council ignoring me and sticking their head in the sand! Tired of my so-called friends turning their backs instead of believing me, after everything we've been through!"

"Yes, I heard about what Kaidan said on Horizon," Liara said sadly. "I'm sorry. But their short-sightedness doesn't diminish what you've accomplished: you and your squad stormed the Collector base, rescued an entire ship's crew, destroyed the Collector base and got out alive."

"You know the Collector's were just puppets," I reminded her. "Mindless thralls and minions to Harbinger and the Reapers. They're still out there—and they won't go down as easily."

"Give yourself some credit, Shepard," Liara urged. "Without the Collectors, the Reapers will have one less tool to use when they arrive."

I guess. At least someone else knew that they would be coming, that it wasn't a hypothetical claim that had been dismissed as the ravings of a loony whacko. I plunked my ass down on my bed. "You think we stand a chance?" I asked, looking up at her.

"I do," Liara nodded, "as long as we have something to fight for."

"Guess you have a point."

"So?"

"So what?"

"Do you have something—or someone—to fight for?"

"Why do I have the feeling that you already know the answer to that?" I asked warily.

"Because you're smart enough to recognize just how good an information broker I really am," Liara smiled. "Though I must admit, I didn't expect things between you and Ms. Lawson to... develop so quickly."

"Miranda has issues," I admitted. "So do I. But we trust each other—and I care about her."

"She was so cold when I first met her," Liara recalled. "Completely focused on the mission and her duty."

I snorted. "I don't know that she's lightened up that much—what's so funny?"

Liara was shaking her head, a slight smile on her face. "She has. Believe me. You have no idea how much you've changed her.

I'd have to take her word on that. **(9)**

"I hope you two find some happiness together. Meanwhile, I should get back to my base."

"Did you ever think that you'd have a 'base'?" I asked.

"No," Liara laughed. "It sounds so dramatic when I put it that way."

"You could call it your lair," I suggested.

"I'm not quite ready to call the info drone my henchman," Liara laughed. "And I know Feron deserves more than that."

Well, at least she was telling jokes again.

"Thanks for inviting me up, Shepard. You were right: I did need to take a break with old friends."

"You know, you can always stay a little longer," I suggested. "Just to make sure you always have a friend around when you need a break. Or a reality check. Feron's welcome, too. Heck, you could even move some stuff onto the Normandy so you can maintain the Shadow Broker network."

Liara looked thoughtful. "Thank you, Shepard," she said. "That's a very tempting offer. I'll have to think about it. If nothing else, the logistics of moving the Shadow Broker's data and equipment will require a great deal of planning and preparation." **(10)**

"Fair enough," I replied. "Just know that the offer's always open."

"I know. And thank you again."

I walked her to the elevator. She was just about to step in when she paused. "Shepard?"

"Yeah, Liara?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," I shrugged.

"You might find it a personal one."

"I said 'sure'," I said, a bit impatiently in hindsight. "Spit it out."

"Have you told Miranda how you feel about her?"

...

"Well?"

Um. Well. I guess not. Not in words. At least. Uh. "They... they say actions speak louder than words," I managed at last. "She knows how I feel."

"That may be," Liara said. "But sometimes silence can be even louder."

"Yeah, well—"

"How about something easier," Liara tried. "Do you love her?"

"Yeah." I guess that was a little easier. At least I didn't stumble my way through that answer.

"Say it."

"Huh?"

Somehow, Liara managed to resist the urge to talk to me like a patient adult dealing with a particularly slow kid. "Let me hear you say it."

"Fine," I sighed. "I care about Miranda. I love her."

...

...

Holy shit.

I said it.

I really said it.

Wow.

"There you go," Liara smiled.

"What?"

"For someone who's so talkative and able to interact with people, you can be very quiet when revealing things about yourself. It's important to recognize them and admit them, to yourself and to others. While you still can."

I thought about what Liara said. I thought about it when I said my goodbyes. I thought about it as I sat there alone in my quarters. I thought about it as I made my rounds. Maybe Liara had a point.

When I got to Miranda's quarters, she handed me a bunch of maintenance reports. I handed her a cup of jasmine tea. For a moment, I thought about saying something to Miranda. Didn't have to be a grand speech or anything, right? It could even be as simple as three little words.

Instead, I thumbed on the datapad and started scrolling through the first report. It could wait, I told myself.

There was always tomorrow, after all.

* * *

_(1): The first author listed in a publication is typically the one who did most of the work, oversaw the project or study and, often, wrote the paper. Having 'first authorship' on a paper typically carries a significant amount of weight and respect with regards to one's contribution to the paper as well as one's overall career. _

_(2): An acronym for After-Action Report, a human term for a retrospective analysis on a mission or series of actions. They are intended to evaluate performance, analyze procedures and actions, determine their effective and efficiency, identify any issues that require improvement and propose any adjustments or recommendations that could address those issues. _

_(3): Shepard and Kirrahe worked on a joint operation against a krogan cloning facility on Virmire, one of many operations run by Saren Arterius as a misguided effort to save his people by working with the Reapers. Kirrahe rallied the remnants of his STG through an inspirational speech, in which he used the phrase 'hold the line.'_

_(4): 1755 CE was noted for many events in humanity's history, including the establishment of Moscow University and the publication of 'A Dictionary of the English Language.' _

_(5): This occurred before I met Shepard on Therum, where he rescued me from Saren's forces._

_(6): Thane killed Nassana with a single shot from his pistol, deliberately angled to maximize the amount of pain she felt and the time it would take for her to succumb to her injuries. Extremely unprofessional by his standards but, by his own admission, this was not a standard contract and he did not expect to survive._

_(7): Sadly, I know many people—even some asari—who wouldn't be so reticent. Shepard's concern was understandable and speaks volumes about his character._

_(8): An informal, albeit common, term for identification tags worn by human military personnel, originating from their resemblance to identification tags used for actual Earth canines. Humans are required to wear two tags—each of which bearing identifying information such as name, rank and service number—at all times. In the event that a human soldier dies, one of the tags can be broken off, while the other tag remains on the body. This allows human authorities, families and friends to be notified, which is particularly important if the body cannot be recovered for some reason._

_(9): There are times when Shepard's modesty and self-deprecation can be truly exasperating._

_(10) I did give Shepard's offer a great deal of thought. That consideration, and the days spent planning and mapping scenarios, served me well when it came time to scuttle the Shadow Broker ship._


End file.
